


Hell's Studio Drabbles

by phantomthief_fee



Series: BATIM Drabbles [7]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: F/M, Mostly just funny stuff, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-09-07 17:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 39
Words: 36,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomthief_fee/pseuds/phantomthief_fee
Summary: Drabbles for the Hell's Studio AU by Doodledrawsthings. They're posted in the reverse order that they were written, for the most part.





	1. Chapter 1

**[dreamnoteprincess](https://dreamnoteprincess.tumblr.com/) asked: So for the fanfic thing. Hell's Studio. What if Bendy and Boris get into an argument and no longer become friends. Bendy has a talk with Henry and Joey and found out they two stopped being friends, but patched it back, and Bendy does the same with Boris**

Credits to [@atomi-cat](https://tmblr.co/mzD932X3fnaf4z0-fxkHPdA) for [this](http://atomi-cat.tumblr.com/post/164325671795/new-challenger-approaches-edit-whoops) comic, which provided the dialogue for Bendy and Boris seeing Sheep Songs.  

* * *

As with all friends, Bendy and Boris had their fair share of fights. However, only one had ever been so bad that they’d stopped being friends over it. It had been in the beginning, right after their initial summoning. Bendy had still been new to the world, clinging to his old ways. He could be arrogant, mischievous, and a bit of a pain in the ass. It was a bit of an understatement to say that the little demon had an ego. He always wanted to be the center of attention at all times. Then Boris had gotten a cartoon focusing around himself. Bendy immediately found himself growing jealous, although he kept it under wraps as best he could. But it was bound to come out eventually.

“Look, Bendy! Looks like I’m gonna be the focus in the next cartoon!” Boris said, pointing at the poster for “Sheep Songs”. He never got the focus in the cartoons. He was so excited!

“Yep! Just don’t let the spotlight get to yer head, pal.” Bendy said.

“What’s  **THAT**  supposed to mean?” Boris’ expression turned mildly irritated. “You’re the star of every other cartoon!”

“Yeah. Cause it’s  **MY** show.” Bendy shrugged. “Makes sense I would be the star, doesn’t it? And I’ll always be the star around here!”

“But that’s not fair,” Boris said, rounding on Bendy. “I deserve to have screen time just as much as you do!”

“Yeah yeah, take it up with the animators.” Bendy waved his hand dismissively.

“No, I’m taking it up with you,” Boris growled, folding his arms. “You’re the one who put yourself in charge of everything!”

“I did not!”

“Then what do you call what you’re doing now?”

“I….” Bendy felt his face heating up. “Just shut up! It’s not my fault!”

“You’re responsible now! And I’m not going to let you boss me around anymore!” Boris stamped his foot. “I’m done being your lackey!”

“Well, maybe  **I’m**  done being your friend!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

And so the two of them stormed off in different directions. Their fight didn’t go unnoticed by the members of the studio. Boris had taken up residence in Sammy’s office, playing melancholy tunes on his clarinet. Now, Sammy didn’t really mind this. After Alice, Boris was his favorite of the toons. But he was a little worried, since Boris was usually so chipper.

“What’s up with you?” Sammy asked. “You look like somebody died.”

“Just my friendship with Bendy.” Boris sighed.

“So you two had a fight.” Sammy turned around to face the toon wolf. “It must’ve been a big one to leave you this upset.”

“He’s just so arrogant all the time, you know?” Boris said. “I was so excited that I was getting my own episode and instead of being happy for me,  he reminded me that he’s the star and he’ll always be the star.” Sammy tried hard not to snort. Alice was slowly growing in popularity, so Bendy might not be the star forever.

“Bendy can be a little shit sometimes, yeah.” Sammy nodded in agreement. “What you need to do is talk it out.”

“Talk it out?” Boris tilted his head to the side. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to hear that kind of advice from you, Sammy.”

“My mom believed in communication,” Sammy said. “If I got into a fight with another kid, my mom would make us sit down and talk out our problems. Wasn’t always fun, but it works pretty well in solving problems.”

“Gee, thanks, Sammy.” Boris swept the music director up in a hug. “You’re a real swell guy.

Meanwhile, Bendy was pacing behind Henry’s desk, yelling and growling about Boris. He’d been at this for about an hour now, and it was beginning to wear on Henry’s nerves.

“Boss, with all due respect,” Henry turned around. “You’re acting like a kid. And not in a good way.”

“I am not!” Bendy snapped. “Boris is the one being unreasonable!”

“No, you are.” Henry adopted his dad voice. “Boris is used to playing second fiddle to you. He was just happy that he’s finally getting a chance to shine. He deserves attention just as much as you do.”

“But I’m the star!” Bendy whined, stamping his foot like a little kid.

“You’re being a diva. Boris is your friend. You should be happy for him.” Henry continued. “Look, being in any kind of relationship is tough, we all know that. But you can’t just give up the second things get tough. Boris has been moping all day, you two should make up.” Bendy folded his arms and hunched his shoulders. He didn’t want to admit he was wrong. But he did miss Boris. It was just….If he wasn’t the star, then what was he? Where did he fit in in Henry’s world?

“Talk things out. It’ll be fine.” Henry assured him.

“You…You really think he’ll forgive me?” Bendy’s voice was small.

“I know he will.”

And with that, Bendy set off to locate Boris. He found him coming out of Sammy’s office, wiping away some stray tears.

“Hey…” Bendy waved tentatively.

“Hey.” Boris waved back.

“Look, I’m really sorry.” Bendy sighed and started in on his apology. “I was a real #$*% to you, and that wasn’t fair. I should have been happy for you, instead of trying to tear you down.”

“I shouldn’t have lashed out at you either,” Boris said. “But thanks. I really appreciate the apology.”

“I missed you bud.”

“I missed you too.”


	2. Chapter 2

phoena12 asked: Hey there! Hell's studio au; the ink machine breaks and causes several pipes to break, so being the mischievous devil that bendy is he decides instead of wasting it by having Franks mop it up, he instead decides to throw an ink war (kinda like paintball or water balloons or a food fight?)

* * *

  
So the ink pipes had burst. Again. Everyone just sort of groaned and Wally got ready to clean it up. But Bendy had a different idea. The week had been rough and he thought everyone could use a break. He gathered everyone in the break room and explained his plan.

“An ink war.” He said, smiling deviously.

“Pardon me?” Henry asked. “What did you say?”

“An ink war,” Bendy repeated. “You know, like, um, paintball or a food fight or something. It could be fun! I think it could do everyone a lot of good. Plus you can drench me and Joey in ink!” Everyone seemed to perk up a little at that. The employees of Joey Drew Studios liked their boss, sure, but he was an exceedingly frustrating person. Having an excuse to throw things at him was an opportunity they weren’t about to pass up. Sammy was absolutely not going to participate in this ink war. Not after he’d gotten turned into an ink monster twice by said ink. But Bendy let him pour a bucket of ink over Joey. After that, Sammy was satisfied and headed home for the day.

“Alright, so let’s figure out how we’re gonna do this,” Bendy muttered.

“I vote in the parking lot,” Wally said. “I don’t wanna clean up after a whole big ink fight.”

“Yeah, good point.” Bendy nodded. “We can do it like a water balloon thing. Henry, you got any water balloons in your car?” It was getting to be the end of summer and everyone knew Henry’s kids loved water balloon fights.

“Yeah.” Henry got up and went out to the car. “They’re mostly pink, I hope you guys don’t mind.”

“I love pink!” Boris said.

“Too bad we can’t get the ink pink,” Bendy said, ruffling Boris’ fur.

“I don’t know how good that would look.” One of the female interns said. “Might look pretty close to a murder scene.”

“Oooh. Good point.” Bendy grimaced. The last thing he wanted was people driving by to see his employees covered in something that looked like blood. Henry returned with the balloons a few minutes later and they set to work putting the ink into the balloons. It took some work to actually get the stuff into them, but they did. Then they went into the parking lot to begin their fight. They divided into two teams, men vs women. The women were led by Susie and Alice, while Joey and Bendy led the men.

“Are you ready to go down?” Susie asked, hefting a water balloon. Alice stood behind her, a look of pure mischief gracing her normally angelic features. She had a balloon in each hand, squeezing them experimentally.

“You’re the ones who are going down,” Bendy said, trying to look as intimidating as possible. This effect was lessened by Boris standing behind him, wagging his tail as his tongue lolled out like a puppy. Oh well. This would still be fun.

“Ready. Set. Go!” The balloons immediately began to fly. Boris was the first one to get hit, being the tallest. When the ink hit him, it just absorbed into his body, leaving him looking as if nothing had happened.

“Hey! That’s not fair!” One of the female interns yelled. “How can we tell if they’ve been hit!” After some debate, it was decided that the toons wouldn’t be counted when they were figuring out which team won. And so the fight continued. As it turned out, Henry was surprisingly good at dodging. He was a big man so no one had expected him to possess the kind of agility shown by Alice and Susie. Joey, on the other hand…While he wasn’t good at dodging, he was particularly vicious when it came to hitting people with the balloons. He had remarkably good aim and tended to use others as human shields. He displayed a level of cunning that no one had ever seen from him before. It was honestly a little scary. Until, that is, he got hit in the face by a balloon. For a moment, he stood there stunned, then he burst out laughing.

“That was a nice shot, Eboni! You really got me!” He said, ducking behind Boris. Bendy visibly relaxed. Okay, everything was fine. Joey wasn’t being creepy anymore. While he was distracted, Alice hit him in the side of the head with a balloon.

“Keep your head in the game!” She yelled.

“Why you- I’m gonna get you back for that, Angel!”

By the end of the fight, practically everyone was covered in ink, along with the majority of the concrete of the parking lot. They were all too tired to pick a winner, so they just said they’d all won.

“Geez, we’re gonna need a hose to clean everyone off.” Wally said, surveying the damage. “My mop isn’t gonna cover all this.”

“Do we have a hose?” Alice asked.

“Doubt it.” Bendy shrugged. “But hey, that was fun!”

“Yeah, it was.” Henry smiled a little. “Thanks for suggesting that, Ben. You were right. We did need that.”

“Of course I was right.” Bendy puffed out his chest. “I’m always right!” Alice rolled her eyes and flicked the back of Bendy’s head. Soon everyone began to disperse. The ink had mostly begun to dry, so everyone needed to go home and wash themselves off so they didn’t get ink poisoning or something. The toons retired to their respective rooms, each pleased with how the day had turned out, Bendy especially.


	3. Chapter 3

**[phoena12](https://phoena12.tumblr.com/) asked: Hey there! Hell's studio au; Henry angst time! So I had the idea of maybe Henry just has a generally bad day at work or He has an argument with his family member (brother, sister, cousin etc.) And so goes to the studio to cool off. The studio crew notice his lackluster demeanor and so try to figure out a way to cheer him up!**

Sorry this took so long. A lot of stuff came up. 

* * *

There was a reason Henry didn’t talk to his family anymore. That reason happened to be the fact that they were homophobic, racist assholes. He’d moved out the first chance he got and never looked back, especially when he married his wife Gloria. He’d expected they would have blown a gasket at him marrying a black woman. And…they had. He and Gloria had been at the supermarket with the children, it was Henry’s day off and they had to run some errands, and somehow his parents had been there. He’d frozen, his eyes locking with theirs. Then they’d looked at Gloria and he could see the rage building behind their eyes. He told Gloria and the kids to go to the car and they’d gone. Gloria knew enough about his parents to not want to be a part of this. The police had to be called because of just how violent his parents started getting. All in all, not an amazing start to the day. Gloria assured him that she and the children were fine when he finally emerged from the supermarket, but he could see they’d all been crying. This only made him angrier. How dare they do this to his family?!

“We’re fine.” Gloria put a hand on his chest. “Why don’t you go to the studio to cool off? We’ll finish the errands.”

“Alright.” Henry was reluctant to just leave them at such a time, but Gloria was right. He did need to cool off.

“Say hi to Mr. Bendy for me.” His eldest daughter said. “And tell him he needs to give me back my pen. He knows which one I’m talking about.

“I will.” Henry couldn’t help but smile a little.

“I mean it.” She said. “I said he could use it once and now he won’t give it back.”

“I’ll tell him you want your pen back.” Henry ruffled her hair. “I promise.” They piled into the car and Gloria dropped him off at the studio. He walked in, letting the familiar scent of ink and paper wash over him.

“Oh, hey boss.” Wally tipped his hat as he walked by. “What’re you doing here? I thought it was your day off.”

“It is,” Henry said, brushing gently past him. Wally frowned, immediately scrambling to find Bendy. He was pretty sure the little demon would want to hear about this. At present, Bendy was in his office, mediating yet another dispute between Sammy and Joey. It was the usual deal. The pipe in Sammy’s office had burst again and Joey had yet to send in a request to fix it. Frustrating, yes, but not too big of a deal. Sammy was in the middle of a tirade when Wally opened the door.

“Wally.” Bendy looked about ready to fall over. “What is it?”

“Uh, so, today’s Henry’s day off, yeah?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So he’s here. And he’s not lookin’ so great.”

“Why would Henry be here today?” Joey asked, tilting his head to the side. “It’s his day off.”

“Yes, Joey, we’ve established that.” Sammy snapped.

“Sammy, for the love of whatever god still accepts me, stop yelling.” Bendy rubbed what might have been his temples. “You’re giving me a headache.” Sammy rolled his eyes, but nevertheless, shut his mouth. Bendy nodded and hopped off his chair.

“I’ll talk to him.” He said. “The rest of you stay here. We might need to come up with some kinda plan when I get back.” Bendy left the office, making his way to Henry’s desk. Sure enough, the other man was there, scribbling away on a piece of paper.

“Henry, what’re you doing here?” Bendy asked, putting on his cheeriest voice. “It’s your day off.”

“Gloria told me I should come here to cool down,” Henry said, without missing a beat.

“You two have a fight?”

“No.”

“Then what happened?”

“My parents happened.”

“Oh.” Bendy had heard stories about Henry’s parents from Joey, but he’d never actually met them in person, a fact he was glad of every day. He’d met enough bigots. He didn’t fancy meeting any more. So he went back to his office to begin making a plan.

“So why’s he here?” Wally asked. The janitor had taken up residence on top of Bendy’s desk and was eating a candy bar he’d pilfered from one of the desk drawers.

“Gimme that.” Bendy snatched the candy away. “It’s his parents.” The room went quiet. Pretty much everyone had heard about Henry’s parents.

“Well, now that we know what the problem is, we can try to do something to fix it,” Joey said brightly. “I’ve dealt with this problem before.”

“Well, what do you usually do to make him feel better?” Bendy took his seat at his desk again.

“Well, it depends,” Joey said, rubbing his chin. “Usually drawing makes him happy. What was he doing when you found him?”

“Drawing. Didn’t look like it was helping neither.”

“Oh dear.”

“What’s going on?” Alice and Boris entered at this point, along with Susie.

“Henry’s having a bad day and we’re trying to figure out how to make him feel better,” Wally said.

“His parents?” Alice asked. The others nodded. Boris, Alice, and Susie entered, shutting the door behind them.

“So, any ideas?” Susie asked, settling beside Sammy.

“Not yet,” Sammy said. “Our best idea yet was drawing. But he’s already doing that.” Susie pursed her lips and gently smacked his shoulder.

“They’re trying. Give them a break.”

Sammy rubbed his arm, but said nothing. And so the meeting began. Susie and Alice suggested Henry sit in on one of the band sessions, but that was thrown out because of how often Sammy would try and correct the players, causing many a fight to break out. Boris’ suggestions tended to be dog related in nature, so they were generally out, although his input was appreciated. As they argued, none of them noticed that Henry was standing in the doorway. He hadn’t seen any of them, and after his conversation with Bendy, he’d remembered he needed to tell the demon his daughter wanted her pen back. He watched his friends argue, unable to stop himself from smiling. They really cared about him, didn’t they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this before Linda was mentioned, so that's why his wife is named Gloria in this.


	4. Chapter 4

phoena12 asked: Hell's studio au: the one and only coffee machine in the studio breaks down and Sammy starts to slowly lose his shit (maybe a cute scene at the end where susie tries to calm him down with sweet words and cuddles??) Also I adore your writing keep up the amazing work \^○^/

 

* * *

 

The coffee machine was broken. Normally, this wouldn’t have been too much of a problem. But this happened to correspond with Sammy trying to quit smoking. He’d replaced the nicotine craving with coffee, and without it…Well, that wasn’t exactly a pleasant sight. Now the machine was broken and everyone was freaking out. Sammy hadn’t come in yet, so they were doing all they could to execute damage control. Wally had been sent out to get a few pots of coffee from a coffee shop nearby while Susie had brought some from home. Sammy arrived to absolute chaos. He wasn’t the only person the studio who needed the coffee after all.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Sammy asked, grabbing Henry by the shoulder.

“Coffee machine’s broken.” Henry said. Sammy blinked, then put both hands on Henry’s shoulders, his eyes going wide.

“What did you say?”

“The coffee machine is broken.” Henry repeated, keeping his composure.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Sammy groaned, relinquishing his grasp on Henry. “Now what am I gonna do?”

“Wally’s getting coffee from a shop.” Henry said.

“And I brought some from home.” Susie slid in, kissing Sammy on the cheek and handing him a cup of coffee.

“You are a lifesaver.” Sammy sipped at the coffee, sighing.

“You’ll get through this.” Susie patted his arm.

“Your faith in me is admirable, if misplaced.” Sammy said. “I guess I should apologize in advance for how awful this day is going to be.”

“It won’t be that bad.” One of the interns said. They regretted saying that soon enough. As the day went on, Sammy became increasingly moody and irritable. He was the one responsible for downing most of the coffee Wally had come back with. He snapped at most everyone who came near him, meaning the interns avoided him like the plague. Except for Cordelia, who continued on as if nothing was wrong. Susie was in and out of the office to calm him down with sweet words and cuddles.

“You’re going to get through this.” She assured him, kissing his cheek and running her hands through his hair. “Just remember, the first few days are always the hardest.”

“I need a cigarette.” Sammy groaned.

“No.” Susie said firmly. “You have to stick with this.” She pulled him back to his feet. “Come on. The band’s about to play. You can take the banjo section.”

“Fine fine.” Sammy followed her to the band room, where Norman was cuing up the band.

“Is it okay if Sammy takes the banjo bit?” Susie asked. Sammy was honestly a little nervous. He’d taken a disliking to the banjo player, writing especially hard sections for him. Of course, he had faith in his own abilities, so he could probably manage it.

“Be my guest.” Norman said, smiling to Sammy. “As long as you don’t try to backseat conduct again.”

“That was one time.” Sammy grumbled, going to the banjo chair. The banjo player gave him a look, relinquishing his seat without any protest.

“Alright, from the top.” Norman lifted his baton and they began. There was something about playing music that always calmed Sammy’s nerves. This instance was no different. He felt himself relaxing as he played, all his focus going into getting the notes right. Susie’s voice drifted out from the recording book. Listening to her and the band, he almost forgot about the fact that he had neither coffee or cigarettes. But as soon as the recording session ended, the cravings came right back. He retreated to his office to aggressively play the banjo to calm himself down. Susie dropped in again to make sure he was still doing okay.

“At least you didn’t yell at the Jeff this time.” She said, settling on the cot.

“Jeff?”

“The banjo player. You didn’t learn his name, I’m guessing.”

“I did not.” Sammy picked up his banjo. “I do not like him. He has no respect for music.”

“He’s kind of a little shit, I’ll admit that.” Susie said. “But he’s trying.”

“I got more coffee.” Wally stuck his head into the office. “Give me five bucks and it’s yours.” Five seconds later a crumpled five dollar bill was being hurled at Wally’s head.

“GIVE IT TO ME!” Sammy’s voice sounded almost unholy. Wally set the coffee down, put his hands up, and backed away slowly. Sammy grabbed the box of coffee, holding it to his chest as if it were something precious.

“Okay honey, I think you might have a problem.” Susie managed to pry the coffee away from him. “Let’s share some of this with the rest of the coffee vampires, hm?”

“……Fine.” Sammy poured himself a cup of coffee and let Susie go to share it. With the coffee, he was able to get some more work done.

Joey got the coffee machine fixed almost the next day. He’d been frantically making calls to anyone and everyone. The studio basically ran on coffee after all. Sammy was a lot calmer with coffee, and the interns’ minds were put at ease. The new machine was a lot nicer and definitely sturdier. The last one had been a little crappy, honestly. Joey hadn’t been able to afford a lot when the studio had started. Susie had to physically hold Sammy back to keep him from drinking all the coffee himself. This was an…interesting scene. The other employees just got their coffee and fled. It was pretty much all they could do.


	5. Chapter 5

dreamnoteprincess asked: Okay. I know I said one more, but I just thought of this. Hell's Studio AU. Sammy starts to show an emotion no one would ever expected; Sadness.

* * *

 

 

No one had ever seen Sammy sad before. Except for the toons during the ink monster debacle, of course. But the human members of the studio were still getting used to seeing Sammy happy. All other emotions from him were foreign. So when Sammy came into work one day looking dejected, no one was quite sure how to react.

“Hey, you feeling okay?” Bendy was sent down to see what was going on with their music director.

“Honestly? No. I’m not.” Sammy sat at his desk, his head in his hands.

“Did something happen?”

“My father just died,” Sammy said. “Does that answer your question?”

“Oh.” Bendy just stood in the doorway, unsure how to proceed. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”

“Yes, well, I’d like to be alone now, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, of course.” Bendy beat a hasty retreat. He was trying not to think about how weird it was to see Sammy sad. He just seemed so…defeated.

“What’s wrong?” Joey asked when Bendy returned to him.

“His dad died.”

“Oh…” Joey looked away, suddenly ashamed of his behavior. “That’s..That’s awful.”

“He just wants to be left alone right now, so let’s give him some space,” Bendy said. “I don’t want to make this any harder for him than it already is.”

“Of course.” Joey nodded. “I completely understand.”

“He’ll tell everyone when he’s ready.”

Bendy spread the word throughout the studio that everyone should leave Sammy alone for a bit. He didn’t tell them why, just that Sammy was going through a rough patch and he needed some space. The studio employees did as they were told and didn’t bother Sammy. Susie and Alice dropped by a few times to give him emotional support. They were about the only ones he wanted to see at the moment. The next week Sammy flew out to his father’s funeral, taking the rest of the month off so he could spend time with his family.

“Do you think he’s gonna be okay?” Alice asked as the toons gathered together after hours. “He looked pretty rough.”

“I don’t know honestly,” Bendy said. “I’ve never seen him like this before. But…people die, right? You go through a grieving process and then you move on. That’s how it goes, right?”

“I always forget humans aren’t like us.” Boris played with his tail. “It must be tough, losing people.”

“Sammy’ll be fine,” Bendy said again, mostly to reassure himself. “He’s always fine.”

When Sammy returned to the studio, he was more or less back to normal. He remained subdued for weeks afterward, but things slowly returned to the way they had once been. Being Sammy, the music director didn’t tell anyone else that his father was dead. Not until a year later that was. But things were normal again. Bendy clung to that sense of normalcy. He saw Sammy sad more than once in the years that followed, but never as distraught as he’d been when his father died. Not until years later.


	6. Chapter 6

inkavixentheinkdemon asked: Yasssss!!!!! Now please do one about Sammy becoming an ink monster, please. That's gonna be hilarious XD

 

* * *

 

So part of this is based off [this ](https://doodledrawsthings.tumblr.com/post/163480563012/i-think-i-lost-track-of-where-i-was-going-with)comic

-

 

It had been a hard week for Sammy, mostly because of the fact that he’d been turned into an ink monster. Now he was back at work, ready to bury himself in his songwriting. Being at home had been nice, but at the same time, he’d been haunted by the memories of being that inky creature. If he could just work hard enough, he’d eventually forget about it. Everyone greeted him warmly, which made him feel a little better. He opened the door to his office and turned on the light, preparing to hang up his coat. As he put his briefcase down, he noticed something on his desk. Still, with coat in hand, he walked over. There was a piece of what looked like chocolate cake, as well as a little card. The note read as follows,

Felt bad that the ink pipes burst on you the other day…

Again…

_Made this with Alice and Joey to make up for it! Don’t worry, he didn’t put anything in it ~~I think~~._

_-S. Campbell_

_A. Angel_

He smiled softly at the card. He could always count on Susie to try and make things better. She was such a lovely person. He sat down at the desk, picking up the provided fork and taking a bite. It was a superb chocolate cake. But there was a strange taste to it. It tasted like…ink? Sammy groaned. Joey had slipped ink into the cake. Of course, he had.

“Joey, I swear to God.” He muttered. Oh well, he couldn’t just let the cake go to waste. It took a little for him to get past the ink flavor, but once he did he was able to finish the slice of cake. It was immediately apparent that this had been a bad idea as an intense pain gripped Sammy. He fell off his chair, clutching at his stomach. His whole body felt hot, but it wasn’t sweat coming out of his body. It was ink. Sammy’s eyes widened. No no no no no. Not again. He couldn’t go through that again. Using one hand, he started dragging himself towards the door, leaving a trail of ink behind him as it began to cover every inch of his body. He barely managed to reach the door before he passed out, his arm reaching for the doorknob.

He was found about ten minutes later when Susie and Alice came to see how he’d liked the cake.

“I just hope Joey didn’t put anything in it,” Susie said. “I wasn’t watching him the whole time and you know how he gets.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Alice assured her. Then the two of them saw the puddle of ink spreading out from under Sammy’s door. They exchanged a look then slammed the door open. Sammy was pushed back, the impact of the door jolting him back into consciousness. He had returned to his ink monster form and was bleeding ink onto the floor due to his not so stable emotional state.

“Get Joey,” Susie said. Alice was out the door almost before Susie said anything. Susie hoisted Sammy up, getting him onto the cot he kept in a corner of the office.

“I can’t believe this is happening again.” Sammy very nearly wailed.

“I’m so sorry.” Susie murmured, trying to calm him down. “I didn’t know he was going to do this. But don’t worry, we’ll fix this. We fixed it last time and we’ll fix it again.”

“I found him.” Alice entered, out of breath, dragging Joey behind her. Bendy was at the creator’s heels, followed by Wally of all people. The janitor was carrying his mop and bucket. Ah, he was there to clean up the ink pools.

“Yeesh. You look rough.” Wally said.

“Thanks, Franks, I couldn’t tell.” Sammy snapped. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. If Sammy could snark, he was okay.

“Sammy,” Joey smiled disarmingly and put his hands up. “I promise, I didn’t intend for this to happen. I just wanted to see-”

“What would happen if you slipped ink machine ink into Susie’s gift, is that it?” Sammy asked, beginning to gain his composure once more. “I’m not your fucking guinea pig, Joey! You have to stop doing this to me!” His form began to melt again. Susie put a hand on his shoulder. At first, he flinched back, but as she murmured comforting things to him he calmed down, pulling himself together.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Joey said, fidgeting. He really did feel bad this time. Sammy really looked pissed off. Even more than usual.

“If you’re really sorry, then fix it!” Sammy snapped. Joey nodded and ran out of the room to begin preparing the solution. Susie and Wally stayed, Susie to calm Sammy and Wally to mop things up.

“He really screwed up this time, huh?” Wally said as he started mopping.

“That’s an understatement.” Susie pursed her lips, glancing back at the door. “I really am sorry, Sammy.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Sammy sighed and buried his face in his hands.

“At least you got cake, right?” Wally said. “I mean, that’s a plus.”

“Yes, I suppose. Aside from the ink taste, it was quite good.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you think so!” Susie’s face lit up. “Alice and I worked really hard on it. I’d never made a chocolate cake before and I was worried about how it would turn out.”

“You did well,” Sammy said, smiling a little. “I did appreciate the thought.”

“There we go!” Susie clapped her hands together. “It’s always nice to see you smile.”

“Freaks me out,” Wally said. “There’s somethin’ unnatural about Sammy smilin’.”

“Franks, I will throw something at you.”

“I know I know.” Wally threw his hands up and kept mopping.

Sammy was back to normal by the end of the day this time. Joey had worked throughout the day in order to fix his mistake. Bendy didn’t even mind. Joey had screwed up and so he headed to fix it. Wally complained about having to mop up Sammy’s ink trails, of course, but he did it all the same. Sammy and Susie had spent most of the day together, which gave Bendy a very interesting idea about how Joey could repay the music director…


	7. Chapter 7

0-melodiousunderfan-0 asked: Hell's Studio: Bendy and Joey set up a secret dinner and tell Sammy Lawrence and Susie Campbell to come for different reasons. When they arrive, it's a dinner for two. (Both Bendy and Joey are hiding as to not get killed.)

* * *

 

Everyone knew Sammy had the hots for Susie Campbell. Anyone who had gotten him drunk had heard him ramble on and on about Susie’s beautiful smile, her heavenly voice and how well it suited Alice Angel. After Joey had turned Sammy into an ink monster, again, Bendy had gotten an idea as to how Joey could make it up to Sammy. So at the end of the next day, Bendy sauntered into Joey’s office, closing the door behind him. Joey was doing paperwork, the radio on beside him.

“Joey.”

Joey looked up. “Oh! Bendy! Hello. What can I do for you?”

“So, I’ve been thinking.” Bendy walked up and leaned on Joey’s desk. “You really screwed up with Sammy.”

“I’m aware.”

“But I know a way you can make it up to him.” Bendy grinned and swished his tail. Joey put down his pen, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“…Go on…”

Bendy’s smile widened. “So here’s what we’re gonna do.”

.

.

Sammy didn’t normally answer notes that were slipped under his door. But he was tired and he was a little worried he’d get yelled at if the note happened to be from Joey. His employer was prone to leaving cryptic messages for some reason. So he just sighed, put on his jacket, and headed to the break room. The pedestals to appease the gods had been taken down a while ago, leaving the room wide open. When he entered the room this time, he found a little table set up for what appeared to be a romantic dinner. There was a candle in the middle, flanked by two plates of spaghetti and silverware. And sitting at the table was Susie. Sammy knew in an instant what was going on. This had to be Bendy and Joey’s doing.

“You get a cryptic note too?” Susie asked. Sammy nodded, sitting down across from her.

“Something tells me Bendy had a hand in this.” He said. “I would say we shouldn’t give him the satisfaction-”

“But it’d be a shame to waste good food?” Susie laughed and picked up her fork.

“Did they happen to provide wine?”

A moment later the door opened and a bottle of wine rolled in. Sammy rolled his eyes and picked up the bottle, popping it open with a provided bottle opener.

“So they’re just going to watch us, aren’t they?” Susie glanced at the door as Sammy poured her a glass.

“Seems likely,” Sammy said. “If we’re lucky they’ll get bored and go away.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Susie held up her glass. The two toasted and drank. The dinner was quiet and quite pleasant as far as Sammy was concerned. Okay, so maybe he wouldn’t kill Joey for setting this up. It was nice to just…talk with Susie. They were both so busy most of the time they barely had time to just talk to one another. By the end of the dinner, Sammy was feeling comfortable enough that he thought he might be able to finally tell Susie how he felt.

“So….Susie…” He took a deep breath.

“Yes?” She leaned on her hands. “Something to say, Sammy?”

“I…For awhile I’ve…” Why was it suddenly so hard to talk? He’d practiced this a dozen times in his mind. Susie waited patiently as Sammy floundered his way through trying to confess to her. She’d known for a while about his crush on her but figured he would confess in his own time. She didn’t want to force him into anything.

“Listen, I like you,” Sammy said. “More than I like other people. I’d like to take you out to dinner some time. Properly.”

“Why Samuel, I thought you’d ever ask.” She smiled wide.

“Wait…Did you know?”

“Half the studio knows. It’s not a very well kept secret.”

Sammy buried his face in his hands, groaning. Susie reached out and patted his shoulder.

“I thought it would be a better idea if I just let you tell me on your own.” She said. “I’m sorry, did I upset you?”

“No,” Sammy said through his hands. “I just feel like an idiot. Half the studio? Really?”

“Something about you always talking about me when you’re drunk?” She withdrew her hand, shrugging a little. Sammy groaned louder. He’d completely forgotten about all the times he’d gotten drunk with his coworkers and rambled on about Susie.

“Don’t worry about it,” Susie said. “We all act stupid when we’re drunk. Now, you want to go get a drink?” She got up and held out a hand to him.

“That would be nice, thank you.” He took it and got to his feet. Bendy and Joey scrambled out of the way so the couple wouldn’t notice them. Sammy and Susie still saw them anyway but paid the pranksters no attention. They walked out hand in hand, heading to the jazz bar that had been Sammy’s former place of employment.

“Looks like it worked pretty well,” Bendy said as he watched them go. “I don’t think Sammy’s gonna kill you after all.”

“At least he’s happy,” Joey said. “Now, I have some paperwork to finish up.” And with that he headed back to his office.


	8. Chapter 8

dreamnoteprincess asked: I hope I'm not annoying you, but I do have one more bendy prompt thing. Bendy makes a bet with Sammy to hold in his anger. Chaos happens.

* * *

 

Sammy had an anger problem. Everyone in the studio was well aware of this. Not a day went by when Sammy wasn’t yelling at someone. The employees in the studio were pretty used to it by this point, although most of the interns were scared of him. Sammy’s temper tended to get on Bendy’s nerves though. Especially during deadline weeks. Everyone was on edge and having Sammy yelling certainly didn’t help. After a particularly difficult deadline week, Bendy got an idea.

“Well well well, if it ain’t the physical embodiment of pure unbridled rage. Howzit goin’ Samuel?” Bendy sauntered up to Sammy, who was glowering at the coffee machine. It was pretty early in the morning, so not the greatest time to be approaching the music director.

“What do you want?” Sammy asked.

“I wanna make a bet, Sammy-Boy.” Bendy pulled Sammy down to his level, hooking an arm around his shoulder.

“…What kind of bet?” Sammy asked. He knew better than to just dive into said bet without any caution. If he wasn’t careful this could end up like the superglue war.

“If you can go an entire work week without yelling at anyone, I won’t prank you for a month.” Bendy pulled out a contract, flourishing it.

“And if I fail?” Sammy eyed the contract warily.

Bendy’s grin widened. “I’ll decide that later.”

“I’ll only do it if you do the same thing,” Sammy said. “One whole work week without yelling at anyone and if you win I’ll take your pranks without retaliation.”

“Alright.” Bendy’s tail swished back and forth with anticipation. “Sign to make it official?”

“I’m not signing your contract,” Sammy said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Why not?”

“I already sold my soul to Joey. I’m not signing any more contracts.”

And so began their competition. Word got out about the bet pretty quickly. Sammy and Bendy’s perpetual prank wars were a constant source of entertainment for the studio, but this was even better. Everyone wanted to see who would break first. Wally was at least a little interested. Sammy didn’t yell all the time, he knew that, but it was surprisingly easy to get him to go off. He expected it would last maybe a day or so and then things would go back to normal. At present, he was mopping up another ink stain.

“Wally.” Wally turned around to see Sammy striding towards him. The janitor started to panic. Sammy showing up wherever Wally was meant he was about to get yelled at. However, instead of yelling, Sammy held out a battered key ring. Wally’s battered key ring.

“You need to keep a better eye on your keys. Or at least invest in a better key ring.” He said, surprisingly calmly.

“You’re…You’re not going to yell at me?” Wally asked, taking the keys.

“Not in this case,” Sammy said. “Bendy bet me I couldn’t go a whole work week without yelling at someone, and in this case, you just had a shitty key ring.”

“And you haven’t broken yet?” Wally’s question made Sammy close his eyes and start counting. “How long’s it been?”

“It’s been two days. I am dying.”

“Well, good luck.” Wally grinned, mock saluted, and walked off. Sammy groaned and retreated to his office to blast ‘Willow Weep For Me’. That always calmed him down. It would be okay. He could do this. Unbeknownst to the rest of the studio, Sammy had actually been going to anger management at the request of his long-suffering landlady. He’d been pissing off some of the other tenants, so she’d not so gently suggested he go to anger management. It was definitely helping him, he could say that much. As the week progressed, he found it easier to not yell. It was still difficult, but not as impossible as it had seemed at first. Bendy was having an extremely difficult time. He was stressed and Joey was not doing him any favors.

“How are you holding up?” Henry asked as he passed by Bendy’s desk. Bendy was face down, screaming quietly.

“Peachy.” The demon said. “Just peachy. How many more days've we got left?”

“Two. You’re almost there.”

Okay, he couldn’t do this. He had to make Sammy break first. He had to break the music director. He started with the most simple of pranks, a bucket of water over Sammy’s office door. Bendy set it up and waited. Sammy left his office a few minutes later and was subsequently drenched. Instead of yelling, he sighed heavily.

“Very funny, boss.” He said, looking in Bendy’s direction. “You’re breaking, aren’t you?”

“Of course not!” Bendy stamped his foot, hands on his hips. Sammy grinned, a very creepy expression.

“I’m gonna win this.” Then he went back into his office for a change of clothes. Bendy ramped up his pranks after that. Each time, Sammy reacted mostly with tiredness, or with the smug satisfaction that he was winning. By the end of the week, neither had cracked yet, but Sammy was very obviously winning, despite almost being turned into an ink monster by Joey. Again. It was almost becoming a thing.

“You ready to throw in the towel?” Sammy asked on the morning of the last day, sipping his coffee.

“I don’t give up, Sammy Boy.” Bendy glowered at him over his cup of ink.

“Well, I for one wouldn’t mind more peace and quiet,” Alice said, walking in. “It’s been so calm lately. I think this is really doing you some good, Sammy.”

“I do feel better.”

“I’m dying,” Bendy said. “Just in case anyone’s wondering. This is killing me.”

“It could do you some good if you weren’t so obsessed with winning.” Alice looked coolly back at him. “And don’t think I haven’t seen your smug looks, Sammy.” Sammy, who had been smirking at Bendy, quickly stopped and excuse himself to go do his work. Bendy beat a hasty retreat as well. Alice sighed, heading out to find Susie. The end of the day came faster than either of them had expected. Neither had broken yet. But they soon would. It was an hour before the end of the workday and Sammy was headed up to deliver the day’s songs, while Bendy was going to check how Joey’s shots were coming. They met outside Joey’s door.

“So.” Sammy looked down at Bendy. They both knew that if anyone could break them, it would be Joey. This was likely going to be the breaking point for both of them. They both sighed and entered. Joey was on the floor, a summoning circle in front of him, lit candles around it, and one of his black magic books open in front of him.

“JOEY!” Both Bendy and Sammy yelled together. Joey looked up, the hood of his robe falling back.

“Oh, hello you two.” He said, smiling. “I’ll be right with you-”

“Joey, what did we tell you about summoning?!” Bendy stormed in, putting out the candles.

“This job is shaving years off my life, I swear.” Sammy dumped the songs on Joey’s desk. “I’m going home.”

“See you tomorrow.” Joey waved Sammy out as if nothing was wrong. Bendy then proceeded to chew him out royally. In the end, neither of them won. But Alice made a sign for Joey to wear that said ‘I can’t control myself around black magic’. He had to wear that sign for a whole week. It didn’t bother Joey, but it made Sammy and Bendy feel better about both of them losing their bet. As a courtesy, Bendy didn’t prank Sammy for the aforementioned month, and Sammy actually continued to try not to yell when he could help it. But Joey still got yelled at. Just not as much.


	9. Chapter 9

dreamnoteprincess asked: (Okay! This has to be a fanfic to make my day) Hell's studio. Sammy decides to propose to Susie, but is nervous and feels like he'll be rejected. That is when Bendy (surprisingly), Boris, and Alice comfort him and tell him he has to do this or he'll miss out. And he does, in front of the studio, with a happy ending.

* * *

  
Sammy and Susie had been dating for a few years now, and Sammy had decided it was time to propose. It was what people did, right? He’d bought a ring and everything. But the more he thought about it, the more nervous he became. He still considered Susie agreeing to date him to be some kind of fluke. He knew he wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around a lot of the time, and although he’d been taking anger management he still had problems with his temper. He was still waiting for the day Susie would come to her senses and decide she didn’t love him anymore. It was going to happen. He was sure of it. She’d probably reject him if he tried to propose. So he sat at his desk, playing with the ring box. It was getting close to the end of the day now and his chance was slowly slipping away, which made him even more nervous.

“Hey, Sammy boy, what’s up?” Bendy sauntered in without a second thought.

“Not not, boss,” Sammy said. Bendy immediately stopped in his tracks. Something was definitely wrong.

“Sammy, what’s wrong?” Bendy asked, walking up to stand beside Sammy’s chair. “You know you can tell me, right?”

“Boss, I’m fi-”

“No, you’re not.” Bendy cut him off. “Hang on, I’m gonna get Boris and Angel. They can help.” Sammy buried his face in his hands as Bendy ran out, returning with the other two toons. Both looked a little confused, but for the most part concerned.

“What’s wrong?” Alice asked. “Bendy said you weren’t acting like yourself.”

“I told him, I’m fine,” Sammy said, head still in his hands. “You’re all making a big deal out of nothing.”

“Hey, what’s that?” Boris pointed to the box sitting on Sammy’s desk. Sammy scrambled to hide it, but Alice picked it up instead. Her face lit up upon opening it.

“Oh, Sammy.” She looked up at him. “You’re going to propose! This is amazing!”

“Way to go!” Bendy slapped Sammy’s back. “Always knew you had it in you!”

“I’ve never been to a wedding before,” Boris said brightly. “This’ll be really fun!”

“I don’t even know if I’m going to do it,” Sammy said. “She might reject me. It’s probably better if I just don’t do it.” He tried to reach for the box again, but Alice wouldn’t give it to him. All the toons crowded around him. Boris laid his head on Sammy’s hugging him tightly.

“Sammy, you can’t avoid it because you’re afraid,” Alice said, holding the box to her chest. “We all have to do things that scare us. And I know Susie will be thrilled if you propose to her!”

“Listen, Sammy,” Bendy put a hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “If you don’t do this, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. All of us can see how much you and Susie care about each other, and I think you’re gonna last. And even if she says no, you will’ve at least done it. Trust me on this.”

“I’ve got faith in you, buddy!” Boris said, his tail wagging. “We all do!” Alice gave him the box back with a small smile.

“So. Are you going to do this?” She asked. Sammy took a deep breath, disentangled himself from Boris, and took the ring box.

“Alright alright.” He said, trying to sound long-suffering. “I’ll do it.”

“Attaboy Sammy!” Bendy slapped his back again. “Let’s go!” And with that, they all trooped upstairs to catch Susie.

Susie was walking out to her car when she heard Sammy yelling her name. It was honestly a relief to hear his voice. She hadn’t seen him all day and she’d honestly been a little worried.

“Sammy! There you are!” She smiled down at him as he paused to catch his breath, hands on his knees. Once he had recovered, he stood up and straightened his tie.

“There’s….There’s something I want to ask you.” He said, reaching into his pocket. Susie’s eyes widened. She knew where this was going. She’d been waiting for this moment. Behind the two of them, the toons had gathered the rest of the studio to witness the event. Half of them hadn’t believed Bendy when he’d said Sammy was proposing, so they’d come just to see if it was true. Joey was starting to cry a little. He always got teary when it came to proposals.

“Yes?” Susie asked, trying to hide her excitement.

“Susie,” Sammy took a deep breath and got down on one knee, opening the ring box. “Will you marry me?” Even though she’d known it was coming, Susie still started to tear up.

“Yes!” She nodded, trying to fight back the tears. “Oh my God, yes!” She practically bowled Sammy over in hugging him. Sammy couldn’t help but smile a little as he slipped the ring onto her finger. In the doorway to the studio, their coworkers cheered.

“We toldja you could do it!” Bendy yelled, putting his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. Alice was starting to cry as well. When Susie was happy, so was she. The two were connected after all. As Sammy looked around at his friends and his new fiance, he felt…happy. He hadn’t felt this happy in a long time. He really was lucky to be surrounded by such amazing people. So he held Susie closer and smiled. For once, he didn’t mind that Bendy had been right.


	10. Chapter 10

florfster asked: hey if you're still doing the prompt thing can you make something about how in @doodledrawsthings 's hell's studio au where whenever bendy curses its replaced with like a car horn and other sound effects

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The first time Bendy tried to swear after his summoning was…interesting. Of course, Bendy knew how to swear. He’d heard Joey (and especially Sammy) swear in the studio, and he was rather certain he’d done it before. So he knew how to do it. But when he actually tried, all that came out were car horns, squeaky toys, and alarms. Joey had missed another deadline, and Bendy thought it required some harsh words.

“Joey you @$%*!?& moron!” Bendy snapped. Instead of the proper swear word, all that came out was a car horn.

“Pardon?” Joey asked, blinking.

“&%#@,” Bendy repeated. “&^*$! Why isn’t this working?!” First was an alarm, then a squeaky toy. The little demon kept going, producing more and more sound effects. Joey was trying very hard not to laugh and failing miserably. It was just too funny not to.

“JOEY DREW YOU BETTER QUIT THAT RIGHT NOW!”

“I-I'm sorry Bendy,” Joey said in between gasps of laughter. He held on to the edge of his desk to keep himself upright. Bendy started swearing at him again, which only made Joey laugh even harder.

“What the hell’s going on in here?” Henry asked, opening the door. The laughter and loud sound effects had drawn him to check things out. Normally Joey’s office was a pretty quiet place. Bendy whirled around, looking absolutely livid. His form was beginning to drip.

“He’s laughing at me!” Bendy said, pointing back at Joey. “The &^%*@#$! jerk!”

“Oh, you figured out you can’t swear,” Henry said as if this was normal.

“What?”

“You’re a cartoon made for kids. You can’t swear.” Henry said. “I don’t know why Joey’s laughing so hard, he should know this.”

“It’s just funny to hear.” Joey had managed to get himself under control now. “You can’t tell me it’s not a little funny.”

“Joey, we’ve got a deadline to meet,” Henry said, trying to hide his own smile. Bendy muttered some curse words and stormed out.

Boris and Alice didn’t have as much of a problem with swearing as the sleep-deprived Bendy did. Alice sometimes swore a little, getting the same sound effects as Bendy, while Boris said things like ‘shoot’ or ‘darn’ or ‘fiddlesticks’ and it was the cutest thing ever.


	11. Chapter 11

inkavixentheinkdemon asked: If you're still doing the prompt thing... How about Bendy falling in the middle of a street and gets run over by a car (toons can't die, right)? Or Bendy falls like, 2 or so stories from weak floorboards in the studio, making a loud crash? ((Hell's Studio AU))

* * *

 

Bendy hadn’t left the studio that day expecting to get run over by a car. He and Henry had left the studio that afternoon for their usual lunch and figure drawing outing. He was in one of his patented disguises, his favorite one, the trenchcoat, fedora, and fake mustache. The little demon was rather proud of his collection of disguises, especially that one.

“I still can’t believe that works.” Henry sighed as they left the studio. “It’s so obviously fake.”

“Hey, if it works it works,” Bendy said, shrugging. “You don’t mess with greatness, Ross.” Henry rolled his eyes. They crossed the street, heading into a park where they could unpack their bagged lunches and watch the people. People watching was always especially fun in the park. It was good for dynamic movement poses as well. Always children running around with their parents chasing desperately after them. Bendy needed to practice drawing older people though. Thankfully, they moved a bit slower and gave him more time to draw them. Bendy got out his sketchbook and started scribbling furiously. There was a cute older couple on a bench that he wanted to draw.

“So much to draw, so little time.” He muttered to himself.

“You’re not even going to eat?” Henry asked.

“No time. Gotta draw.” Bendy swatted at Henry’s outstretched hand, which bore a sandwich. Henry withdrew the sandwich, eating it himself. Only once he was done with his food did he join Bendy in drawing. He was working on landscapes this time. Backgrounds were always rather tough so he had to get some practice in when he could. Trees were hard. Trees were always hard.

“You drawing anything good?” Henry asked, glancing over at Bendy.

“Cute old couple,” Bendy said. “You think you and your wife will be like that when you’re old?” He pointed them out to Henry, who expression immediately softened.

“Well, I’d hope so.” He said.

“You will be,” Bendy said. “You two are gonna last. I can tell.”

“Thank boss.” Henry patted Bendy’s back. “You wanna pack it up now?”

“Lemme finish this,” Bendy said. Once he was done with the drawing, he packed everything up and they headed back towards the studio. That was when it happened. They were crossing the street when a car came speeding up and hit Bendy straight on. For a moment, the world seemed to stop. The car kept going, and Bendy flattened against the ground. People stopped walking, gathering around to see the scene unfolding. The car screeched to a stop, the driver stumbling out. Bendy peeled himself off the pavement, birds and stars spinning around his head. Well, that was certainly a first. He’d gotten run over by things in the cartoons before, but never in real life like this.

“Oh my God! Are you okay?” Henry ran to his side.

“‘M fine,” Bendy said, blinking and shaking his head. Around the two of them, people were starting to whisper.

“Did you see that?”

“He was literally flat against the pavement!”

“Where did those birds come from?”

“It’s like something from a cartoon.”

“What is he?”

“That thing can’t be human.”

“We need to go. Now.” Henry dragged Bendy up, practically carrying him back to the studio. The whispers in the crowd turned to shouts as Bendy and Henry fled. This was the sort of thing they’d been trying for years to prevent. People had seen Bendy do something that no human should be able to do. This could be a media nightmare if the word got out. The members of the studio were assembled when the pair returned.

“We heard yelling, what happened?” Alice asked.

“Bendy got run over by a car.”

“He what?!” Most everyone practically jumped out of their shoes. No one in the studio had ever heard Joey yell before. It just didn’t happen. Now he was red in the face, looking both terrified and furious.

“He got run over by a car,” Henry repeated. “In front of a giant crowd of people. It’s bad.”

“I’m okay, in case you were wondering,” Bendy said, raising his hand.

“We’re going to have to lay low for a while,” Henry continued.

“It’ll be fine, right?” Boris whispered. “We’ll be fine.” Henry didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to lie to Boris. This could conceivably get bad if people found out Joey Drew had summoned living breathing cartoons via black magic. They could lose a lot of funding, people could stop watching their cartoons. It could get bad.

“People are dumb, it’ll be fine,” Sammy said, folding his arms and avoiding eye contact. “By tomorrow everyone will probably just chalk it up to some hoax. You know how it is.”

“I need to go think.” Joey murmured, wringing his hands. Henry knew he was thinking the same things. The black magic, the possible loss of funding. But then again, they didn’t have to advertise the black magic.

“Come on, let’s get back to playing.” Alice took Boris by the hand and led him back to the music room. Soon, it was just Henry and Bendy alone in the foyer hallway.

“This is such a pain.” Bendy groaned, rubbing at his temples.

“Just stay inside for a little,” Henry said. “People will forget about it.”

“Will they, Henry?” Bendy looked up at Henry, uncharacteristically solemn. “A living cartoon isn’t exactly something you see every day.”

Henry sighed. “I have to believe, Bendy. It’s all I’ve got.”


	12. Chapter 12

freddy-fransisco-fazbear asked: So are you still doing the prompt thing? If so; bendy's disguise falling off in the middle of a speech or something at a charity event. Bendy tries to calm everyone down but they all realize he's a living toon. (hells studio au)

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It had been a month since Bendy’s little car accident. Despite how worried everyone was about their secret getting out, Bendy was still insisting on going to their annual toy drive. It was an event they’d started back when the studio had still been new. It had been Wally’s idea and it had become a widely beloved event. Everyone pitched in, but no one was more into it than Bendy. The little demon coordinated everything, appeared at the event, and entertained the children. He never missed an event. But this was different. It was dangerous for Bendy to appear after the car accident. Bendy wouldn’t hear of it though.

“I can’t disappoint the kids!” He said, grabbing his shirt, tie, and fake glasses disguise. “They always look forward to seeing me!”

“I know, Ben, it’s just-”

“No buts, Henry,” Bendy said. “I’m not gonna abandon those kids.” His tone indicated he wasn’t open to discussion. “Alright.” Henry backed off. When it came to the kids, Bendy would sacrifice anything to make them smile. Henry didn’t feel like getting into an argument with Bendy at the moment. Soon enough they were all crammed in Henry’s van, on the way to the event. The toons sat in the back, with Sammy jammed in between Boris and Alice. They had fewer problems with Alice and Boris, given that Alice looked human and most people assumed Boris was wearing a suit. Bendy was the most complicated case, due to his small stature and demonic nature.

“You sure this’ll be okay?” Boris asked. “We won’t get in trouble, will we?”

“We’ll be fine,” Bendy said, patting Boris’ shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll go off without a hitch, just like always!”

“I’m not wearing the elf costume this year,” Sammy said. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not doing it.”

“Aw, but you look so good in it, Sammy-Boy~” Bendy elbowed Sammy in the ribs with a conspiratorial wink.

“I’m not doing it, boss.”

“Pleeaaase~”

“No.”

“Boris, do the puppy eyes.”

“What-?! That’s not fair!”

In the end, Sammy did end up wearing the elf costume. He wasn’t happy about it, but he did it anyway. After all, it did make the kids smile. Bendy dressed up in a little Santa costume and ran around taking pictures with the kids before giving them presents. Kids climbed all over Boris, petting him and giggling over the big doggy. Alice mostly stood to the side with Samy, handing out presents to the shyer kids. Everything seemed to be going fine. Henry was starting to relax. Then it happened. One of the kids pulled off Bendy’s beard and knocked his hat off.

“Bendy!” The kid’s face lit up. “Mom, it’s Bendy!” A few of the parents looked over, their eyes widening upon seeing the little demon’s head. The whispers began again.

“That’s Bendy.”

“A cartoon character come to life?”

“How did they manage to do this?”

Bendy, ever the showman, took a deep breath and ditched his Santa suit.

“That’s right!” He forced himself to smile. “I heard my pals were here, and I couldn’t miss out on that, could I?” The kids cheered, crowding around and clambering to touch Bendy.

“I don’t know how you managed this, but it’s incredible.” One of the mothers whispered to Henry and Joey. “You always hire the best actors.”

“Thanks. We work hard at it.” Henry managed a smile. Okay. So it was alright. He should have known that in a situation like this, the parents would assume the ‘living cartoons’ were merely actors. They had an explanation for it. Thank God.

“Mommy, Bendy’s dripping on me!” One of the kids yelled. Bendy was starting to melt a little due to the stress, getting ink on a few of the kids.

“Wait, that’s not an actor.” One of the mothers gasped. “Is…Is it a real cartoon?”

Bendy began to melt even more, wilting under the gaze of the horrified parents. This was bad, this was really really bad.

“Are they…Are they all real?” A mother asked. “Boris, Alice, Bendy, all of them?”

“Yes.” Henry nodded.

“I wanted to bring them to life.” Joey stepped in. “So that they could reach more people than they could as just drawings on a page.” For a moment, the room was silent, then the parents erupted into questions. The children, meanwhile, were more concerned with Bendy.

“Why’re you all melty? Are you okay?”

“I-I’m fine, kiddo.” Bendy tried to pull himself back together. “Just a little….A little nervous.”

“Nervous about what?”

“Your parents. I think they might be mad at Joey.”

“But Mr. Drew made you real! That’s awesome!”

“You…You really think so?” Bendy asked slowly. The kids all nodded. Bendy smiled softly. You could always count on kids to be the most accepting creatures on the planet. As long as he had their support, he was happy. It was all for the kids after all. Once the parents noticed their children weren’t freaking out, a good portion of them calmed down. Bendy made their kids happy after all. Still, Henry knew this was going to make it into the papers. How could it not? But it wouldn’t be as bad as he’d previously anticipated.


	13. Chapter 13

fiddle-dee-dee777 asked: If you're still doing the BatIM prompt game, then how about. . . The Hell's Studio gang discovering that Boris the Wolf needs reading glasses?

* * *

 

The day started out normal enough. Boris was in the music room, playing the clarinet while the band started to rehearse. Boris was trying to get this one section right, but as usual, he was having trouble seeing the notes on the paper. It was a problem that had just developed recently, but he didn’t want to tell anyone for fear of inconveniencing the other members of the studio. Of course, he knew realistically that he wouldn’t be bothering anyone, but he still worried. He just wanted to be helpful.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Bendy’s voice startled him. It was amazing how quietly the little demon could move. He must have seen Boris frowning at the sheet of paper.

“It’s nothin’ Bendy, don’t worry about it,” Boris said. Bendy sighed, then put his hands on Boris’ muzzle.

“Boris, buddy. We’re best friends. You can tell me anything.” He said, his expression faux-serious. “I promise, whatever it is, I won’t judge ya.” Boris hesitated, playing nervously with his tail.

“Well, it’s just…I have trouble reading the notes sometimes, that’s all.” The wolf explained. “They’re all blurry and I gotta get up real close to see ‘em.”

“Huh.” Bendy frowned. “We should ask Henry about that.”

“Oh no, it’s alright, I don’t want to bother him,” Boris said. “He’s probably busy.”

“Boris, you wanna play your music, don’tcha?” Bendy didn’t take no for an answer, already starting to drag Boris up to Henry’s office. The wolf whimpered a little but didn’t fight his friend too much. He had known his problem was going to come out sooner or later. It was hard to hide things from people in the studio. He’d just hoped he could keep from inconveniencing everyone for as long as possible. The two of them found Henry in Joey’s office, along with a typically irate Sammy.

“Maybe we should come back later,” Boris said.

“Nah. They’ll make time.” Bendy waved a hand dismissively. “Hey! Guys! I gotta ask Henry something!”

“What is it?” Henry asked, his head currently in his hands.

“Boris is having trouble seeing the notes on his sheet music,” Bendy said. “Why is that?”

“Sounds like he needs reading glasses,” Joey said.

“Reading glasses?” Sammy frowned. “Since when do toons need reading glasses?”

“Since now apparently,” Henry said. He started digging in his pockets before pulling out an old pair of reading glasses. “Try these.” Boris nodded and put them on. It took a little effort to get them balanced on his muzzle but he managed it.

“Looking good, buddy.” Bendy slapped Boris’ back. “All we need’s a nightgown and you can be the gramma from Little Red Riding Hood!”

“Does that make you Little Red?” Sammy asked, smirking.

“Lawrence, I will not hesitate to slap you.”

“You can’t even reach my face.”

“You wanna see me bite your kneecaps, Sammy?”

“We’ll probably need to get you some tailored to your prescription though,” Henry said, getting everyone back on topic. “Your sight’s definitely better than mine.”

“Looks like it’s disguise time again.” Bendy rubbed his hands together.

“It’s not going to work.” Henry groaned, even as Joey started scrambling to find some disguise clothes. Henry just sat back in his chair, watching as the others began to formulate a plan. Even Sammy had joined in, for one reason or another. He was probably bored, Henry concluded. Or avoiding work again. Boris’ tail was wagging pretty hard at the prospect of a new fun adventure. Bendy always made this little outings seem like grand epics. As long as Bendy was with him, it would be alright.

A few days later they snuck Boris out and took him to the optometrist, someone who wouldn’t ask any questions if they brought an anthropomorphic toon wolf into their office. Boris got a nice pair of reading glasses and was able to start playing his music once again. He was a lot happier with the new glasses, even if it was a sign of how they were all getting older.


	14. Chapter 14

dreamnoteprincess asked: (I hope you don't mind me asking another BATIM fanfic ask thing) Hell's Studio: Henry trying to hang out with Sammy, hoping he can be friends with his co-worker

* * *

Joey Drew Studios was an…interesting place to work. Henry had learned that from the very beginning. When he and Joey had first started out, it had just been a few of them. Sammy had been the first employee they’d hired in the beginning. Things had been a little….awkward starting out. Sammy wasn’t exactly the most open or welcoming person. He did his work and didn’t interact with anyone. This was a stark contrast to other employees like Wally or Norman, both of whom tended to be very sociable. Henry didn’t go out of his way to be liked or anything, but Sammy….Sammy was a little different. It bothered Henry not being on at least good terms with Sammy. So he had decided to invite Sammy out for drinks after work.

“What?” Sammy stared at Henry as if the other man had just asked him to jump off a cliff.

“I was wondering if you wanted to get drinks after work,” Henry repeated, trying not to sigh. “I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”

Sammy narrowed his eyes, putting his pen down. “There’s no catch, right? It’s just free alcohol.”

“No catch. I just want to get to know you.”

“Okay…” Sammy turned back his work. “I know a really good jazz bar. We’ll meet up in front of the studio.” Henry had been prepared to argue, to try and convince Sammy. This had gone a lot better than he’d expected.

“Alright. See you then.”

.

.

True to his word, Sammy met up with Henry outside the studio after work. Samy insisted they take his car over. Henry agreed, a mistake he would not repeat again. Sammy was a careful driver, but when someone pissed him off he had a tendency to blow his top. Henry’s knuckles had gone white clutching at his seat by the time they got there.

“You alright?” Sammy asked, glancing over.

“I’m fine,” Henry said, his voice a few octaves higher than usual. “Let’s just go in.” Sammy shrugged and the two of them went inside. The inside of the bar was dimly lit, the air clogged with cigarette smoke as people spoke in low tones. A jazz band played on a stage in the back, illuminated by a spotlight. Somehow, it seemed exactly the kind of place Sammy would enjoy. Dark, quiet, everyone smoking.

“This is a nice place,” Henry said. Sammy shrugged, but Henry could see a faint smile gracing the music director’s face.

“So, what’s your poison?” Sammy asked as they seated themselves at the bar.

“Beer’s fine.”

“Hm. A bit boring, but if that’s what you want.” He turned to the bartender. “A beer for him and a whiskey for me.”

“Ah! Sammy! It’s been a while!” The bartender boomed. “We thought you’d forgotten about us!” The bartender was a big man, taller than Henry and about twice as wide. While Henry winced at his loud voice, Sammy just sat there calmly.

“Don’t worry, Morris, it’s nothing like that,” Sammy said, starting to dig for his wallet. “I’ve just been busy.” Henry put a hand on Sammy’s and pulled out his own wallet.

“This one’s on me.” He said. Sammy looked ready to protest, then thought better of it and withdrew his hand.

“Who’s your friend?” Morris asked, beginning to get the drinks.

“Henry Stein,” Sammy explained. “He’s my boss at the studio.”

“Hi.” Henry just waved. “Um, how do you know Sammy exactly?”

“He used to play piano here,” Morris said, slamming the tankard of beer onto the bar. “Damn good at it too!” Henry thanked him quietly and took the beer, starting to sip it quietly. Sammy took his whiskey before Morris could slam it down.

“Joey showed up a couple months ago and offered me the music director job.” He said. “I’m guessing he didn’t tell you that.”

“Must’ve slipped his mind.” When referring to anyone else, it might’ve sounded like an excuse. But when it came to Joey, it was most definitely true. A lot of things tended to slip Joey’s mind. Sammy snorted into his beer, taking out a cigarette and lighting it.

“Yeah. Probably.” He glanced back at the band, blowing out a ring of smoke. “He really is a weird one, isn’t he?”

“No one’s arguing with you there.” Henry laughed.

“How long’ve you known him, exactly?” Sammy asked. “It seems like the two of you are pretty close.”

“We met in college. We were in the same animation class and sort of hit it off from there.” Henry took a sip from his beer. “And before you ask, yes, he’s always been this weird.”

“You think I’ll get used to it?”

“Probably.” This was going much better than Henry had expected. Maybe it was because of the alcohol, maybe it was because Sammy was comfortable in this environment. Either way, he seemed a lot more forthcoming than he’d ever been at the studio. Henry couldn’t help but smile to himself.

“Wipe that stupid expression off your face.” Sammy’s signature sour look descended upon his face. “We’re not bonding or anything.”

“Right. Of course.” Henry shook his head and went back to his beer. They didn’t talk about their little meeting much afterward, but thankfully Sammy opened up a little more to the studio. He and Wally became rather close, even if their relationship mostly consisted of pranking and making jabs at each other. Sammy and Henry didn’t talk much, but Henry was always glad he’d gotten to hang out with Sammy, even for a little while.


	15. Chapter 15

dreamnoteprincess asked: Hell's studio: Sammy on a road trip with Henry and Joey

* * *

 

Sammy didn’t know why he had to be here. They were headed to an animation convention, something he was most definitely not involved with. He was the music director for crying out loud! But nooo. He had to come because apparently, Joey would try to summon demons if they weren’t careful. The more he thought about it, the less surprised he was he’d gotten dragged into this. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to complain though. So here he was, jammed in between a bunch of animation supplies in the back seat of Joey’s car.

“We should’ve taken Henry’s van,” Sammy said, trying to get a tripod to stop poking him in the ribs. “There’s more room in that thing.”

“Nonsense,” Joey said brightly. “There’s only three of us.”

“And a shit-ton of your animation stuff. Why do I have to be in the back anyway?”

“Because you’re a string bean,” Henry said, not even looking up from his book. “I can’t fit back there.”

“Well, Joey’s a string bean too! Why can’t he sit back here while I drive?”

“Because you get road rage.”

“I do not!” Sammy protested, even though he knew it was true. Everyone liked to joke about how his high strung nature bled into every part of his life. He stayed silent for at least an hour or so, actually managing to doze off a little. Until the tripod jabbed him in the rib again.

“Dammit!” He was pretty close to throwing the tripod out the window.

“Careful,” Joey said. “If you break that it’s coming out of your paycheck.”

“……Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Nope!” Joey beamed into the rearview mirror. Sammy groaned and leaned on the tripod. He dug a notebook out of his back pocket and started furiously scribbling down some song ideas and tunes. Music helped him. Henry glanced back. Sammy had been quiet for a while now and he was honestly a little worried. Bad things happened when Sammy got quiet. However, his fears were assuaged when he saw Sammy scribbling. That was okay. That was good. Sammy writing music seldom hurt anyone. Except for those times he wrote curses instead of music and handed the sheets out. That had been pretty bad.

“I told you it would be alright,” Joey said.

“You could’ve packed the car better,” Sammy said.

“That was my fault,” Henry admitted. “We were short on time. I didn’t plan ahead.” He’d done this partially on purpose so that Joey wouldn’t have time to pack any demon summoning stuff. He knew, though, that Joey had still managed to pack in some things.

“What the Hell?!” Ah, Sammy had found some of the stuff. The music director thrust a roll of paper towards the driver and passenger.

“Joey, what is that?” Henry asked, sighing deeply.

“My portable summoning circle,” Joey said, as though this was a perfectly normal thing for someone to pack. Henry sighed again.

“Ben’s gonna be pretty angry.”

“Oh, hush. It’ll be fine.”

“No, it won’t.”

“WHY DID YOU STICK ME NEXT TO PENTAGRAMS?! DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO ME LAST MONTH?!”

“Sammy, please lower your voice.”

“NO, I WILL NOT!”

And so the trip continued, mostly, without a hitch. They got to the convention, did their thing, and headed back, the car packed in a better manner the second time around.


	16. Chapter 16

42-of-t asked: Hey there! I just stumbled into your tumblr, and wanted to say that i really enjoyed reading your Hells Studio AU writings :DDD!! Tho after i read the "road trip" one, im starting to wonder what happened to poor Sammy last month when he was around pentagrams ;) can you please elaborate more on that part and write some more if you dont mind? (If you alrdy wrote sth or its in one of the Hells Studio's episodes, im sorry, i only recently found out still trying to catch up things!) Thx in advance <3  
.

I was originally referring to Sammy getting turned into an ink monster, but let’s torture him a little more, shall we? >:3

* * *

 

Sometimes Sammy really hated his job. It was by no means a bad job, he just….didn’t know how to deal with Joey sometimes. Joey was a decent boss, he paid well, he was halfway decent about deadlines, and he didn’t work everyone too hard. That honor went to Bendy. But Joey liked the occult. A lot. Almost every day, Sammy would walk into Joey’s office to find his boss painting a pentagram on the floor. These incidents had decreased since the toons had been summoned, but it still happened a fair amount. Normally this wasn’t a problem. Sammy would walk in, yell at Joey, then leave. That was how it went. On this particular day, things went bad. Sammy was just sitting in his office, working on a new song, when the pipes began rattling. Ever since the ink monster incident, the pipes had been reinforced, but they still rattled like crazy. Sammy grumbled and got up, slapping the pipe. Almost instantly he yelped, drawing his hand back. It had cut him!

“Damn pipes.” He muttered, holding his hand to his chest. He took a moment to rifle through his desk for bandages. Unfortunately Bendy had nicked them the other day for Wally, so there were none to be found. Sammy swore under his breath. Maybe Joey had some. Sammy took a deep breath, then yelled,

“JOEY!”

“Here we go.” One of the interns groaned. Sammy gave him a withering look as he left his office. When were these interns going to learn a little respect? He’d chew the kid out later. Right now, he had to go yell at Joey. He stalked up the stairs and towards Joey’s office.

“Hey, where ya goin’ Sammy boy?” Bendy fell into step beside him.

“Cut my hand on one of the pipes,” Sammy muttered. “Gonna yell at Joey about it.”

“Geez. Shouldn’t you clean up that cut first?” Bendy asked. “You can’t just go yell at Joey for every little thing that goes wrong.”

“Did you forget that you took the bandages that were in my office?” Sammy smiled menacingly. Bendy grimaced. Right. He’d forgotten about that. Maybe he’d just let this run its course. He’d get Sammy to deal with his anger problems later. Sammy got to Joey’s door and slammed it open. Joey was on the floor on top of a freshly painted pentagram. Candles were burning low and there was ink in the middle of the symbol.

“Ah, good morning!” Joey said brightly. “I was just finishing up here. If you’ll give me a moment I’ll be right with you.”

“What on Earth were you doin’?” Bendy skirted around the circle to stand next to Joey. “You better not be summoning again.”

“Oh no, nothing like that,” Joey assured him. “I was just helping Alice stabilize her form. She was having a little trouble.” He turned to look at Sammy. “Oh dear, that looks nasty. What happened?”

“I cut my hand on one of your damn pipes.” Sammy spat, stalking into the room and waving his hands around wildly. “I thought you said they were safe!”

“Sammy, you might not want to walk there-” Joey began as Sammy got to the circle.

“I’m not done! Do you have any idea how dangerous a sharp pipe right above my head is? People are in and out of there all day! Someone could cut their head open!” Sammy continued, oblivious to the fact that he had entered the circle, his blood splashing onto the sigil and mixing with the ink. The candle flames began to burn brighter.

“Oh @%*&,” Bendy said. The flames almost exploded, shrouding the music director from view. Within the circle, both Bendy and Joey could hear Sammy start to scream. Joey began flipping frantically through his book. Then it was over. The candle flames died and there was Sammy, standing in the middle of the circle. Thankfully, he wasn’t an ink monster like he’d been the last time. No, he was a toon.

“…Sammy?” Bendy asked slowly. “You okay?”

“I….I feel weird,” Sammy said, then promptly fell on his face. Both Bendy and Joey ran to his side. He was still breathing, that was good. In fact, a dream cloud seemed to be forming above his head.

“Well, this is…new,” Joey said, scribbling something in his book. “I wonder if he’ll be okay.”

“Joey, we gotta fix this. Sammy’s gonna kill us for it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Joey, it’s Sammy.”

Suddenly the door slammed open again, revealing Henry, Boris, Alice, Wally, and Susie. All of them looked some level of concerned.

“We heard screaming,” Alice said, looking frantic. “What’s going on?”

“Hey, isn’t that Sammy?” Wally pointed to the figure crumpled on the floor. “Why’s he got wings?”

“Wings-?” Bendy glanced down at Sammy. Sure enough, Sammy had a tiny pair of wings, along with a halo.

“Joey.” Henry sighed deeply, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Why…Why is Sammy a toon? Please tell me you didn’t try some kind of ritual on him.”

“No!” Joey looked almost offended. “It was an accident. I’d just finished up with Alice and Sammy came in here and splashed blood all over the circle.”

“My form was getting unstable,” Alice explained. “He was helping. Where did the blood come from? Did he hurt himself?”

“He cut his hand on a pipe,” Bendy said, in the midst of prodding Sammy with his foot. “Nothin’ major, I swear. He just had to walk into that circle.”

“Is he gonna be okay?” Boris asked. His ears and tail were drooping.

“Don’t worry, big guy. I’m sure he’ll be fine.” Henry said, slapping his back. Bendy didn’t feel comfortable assuring everyone of that, so he just shooed them out. He and Boris moved Sammy down to his office and watched to see what would happen. Alice stayed as well, feeling responsible.

“His blood must have mixed with my ink.” She said, pacing the floor. “This is my fault. I-”

“Angel, give it a rest.” Bendy groaned, rubbing his temples. “You couldn’t have known this was going to happen. It’s Sammy’s fault for just walking into the circle like that. He should’ve known that getting blood on a pentagram’s a bad idea.”

“What’s a bad idea?” Everyone spun around to see Sammy sitting up on the cot they’d hastily set up in the corner of his office.

“Getting blood on a pentagram,” Bendy repeated. “You feelin’ okay?”

“Yes. Why?” Sammy swung his legs over the side of the cot.

“Well, you…sort of….turned into a toon?” Alice said. She wasn’t sure how exactly to broach the subject, deciding it best to just say it outright. Sammy turned, looking himself over and giving his new wings an experimental flap.

“Huh. So I did.”

“You’re not…angry?” Alice asked. Normally steam would have been coming out of Sammy’s ears, quite literally given his current toon status. It was strange to see him so calm. He still looked slightly pissed off, but overall a lot more stable.

“No. I feel….pretty good actually.” Sammy nodded slowly. “I mean…It’s a little uncomfortable, and I don’t want to stay like this, but I’m…I’m okay.”

“We were so worried!” Boris latched himself onto Sammy, his tail wagging fairly hard. Sammy laughed, actually laughed, and rubbed Boris’ head.

“Man, big guy,” Bendy laughed. “You got Sammy to smile! Nice job!” Still, it was so weird to see Sammy actually happy. He quickly excused himself to update Joey on the situation. He found Joey bent over his books and the pentagram.

“So, I think I’ve got it figured out,” Joey said, not looking up. “The first time, Sammy’s blood reacted with Alice’s ink, so this time we just need Sammy’s blood to react with human blood. It would probably be better if you didn’t bring him u. I don’t really want to get yelled at-”

“Joey.” Bendy strode over, putting his hands on Joey’s shoulders. “He’s calm.” Joey looked up, blinking.

“He’s…What?”

“He’s calm,” Bendy repeated. “You gotta see this.”

“Oh, um, alright. Bring him up.” Joey resettled himself with the book. Bendy ran back down, grabbing Sammy by the arm and dragging him upstairs. For once, Sammy didn’t protest, letting himself be dragged along.

“Hm.” Joey titled his head to the side upon seeing Sammy. “Very interesting. You know, he would make a pretty good character on the show.”

“Joey, no,” Sammy said, settling into a cool glare. “You have to fix this. It’s better than being an ink monster, but I don’t want to stay like this.”

“Right. Right. Of course.” Joey waved a hand dismissively. “I do think I know how to fix this.” It was certainly a better situation than the ink monster debacle. Sammy settled in a corner, watching as Joey began to try and bring the components together again. Somehow, Sammy managed to pull out a harp and played a little melody on it. He was the picture of a perfect angel. It was so strange to see him like this. An angel was the furthest thing from Sammy’s true personality. Meanwhile, Joey was humming away, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Bendy was beginning to get antsy.

“Is this gonna be done soon?” He tried not to snap. Sammy was starting to freak him out.

“Yes yes. I’m about finished.” Joey said. “Sammy, if you’d get in the circle, please?” Sammy put the harp away and got into the circle. Joey then pulled out a long, wicked looking knife from his pocket.

“JOEY PUT THAT AWAY!” Bendy shrieked, grabbing for the knife.

“What? We need blood.” Joey said, frowning innocently. Where had he even gotten that from? Even Sammy reeled back a couple steps.

“Let’s just use some of the blood he smeared on the door, okay?” Bendy grabbed a bandage, rubbing off the blood and dumping it in the circle.

“We still need some of toon Sammy’s blood.”

“Fine.” Sammy grabbed the knife and pricked his finger. The second the toon blood touched the human blood, the candle flames roared to life. Sammy began to scream again, and when the flames died, he was back to normal, if a little inky.

“We will never speak of this again,” Sammy said in a low voice. “Never. Again.”

“But-”

“Never means never Joey!” Sammy stalked out of the office, but not before grabbing a roll of bandages to wrap up his hand. Joey looked disappointed, retreating to his desk to start sketching up ‘Sammy Angel’. He didn’t care what Sammy said, it was a good idea for a character. Bendy was just glad things were normal again.


	17. Chapter 17

Based on these posts:  
https://doodledrawsthings.tumblr.com/post/161800220592/hey-i-dunno-if-anyone-has-asked-this-yet-but-does  
https://doodledrawsthings.tumblr.com/post/162385388617/so-whats-gonna-happen-now-that-sammys-an-ink  
https://doodledrawsthings.tumblr.com/post/162340525392/what-would-happen-if-ink-sammy-drank-colored-ink

* * *

  
Even though he’d never admit it, Sammy liked working for Joey Drew. Sure, the man had the self-preservation instincts of a lemming, but he was patient and understanding towards his employees. However, because Joey had the self-preservation of a lemming, he was prone to doing things that had disastrous consequences for the people around him. The ink machine had been one of those decisions that had resulted in consequences for people other than Joey. Namely Sammy himself. The cartoons that had sprung from it, those Sammy didn’t mind. It was the constant leakage of the machine that got on his nerves. It seemed like every day his work was ruined because ink bled through the ceiling and drenched his clothing and music sheets. He had gone through so many shirts he’d stopped wearing anything nice to the office.

That day, he expected it would be like any other. He’d brought an extra change of clothes, expecting his clothes would be ruined yet again. He went to his office, stowed the clothes out of reach, then set to work. He heard the telltale rattle of the pipes and braced for the impact. There was much more ink than usual in the downpour. And it…It felt strange. The ink seemed to coat every inch of him, but when he opened his eyes, his clothes weren’t stained. He felt…different. Then he caught sight of his arms. They did not look like his arms. They were black and dripping ink all over the place. He felt his head, and found it similarly inky and featureless. The second this realization came about, he was up the stairs and headed towards Joey’s office. He garnered more than a few stares as he did so, given his appearance. The toons stopped what they were doing and followed after him, recognizing him only by his screaming of Joey’s name. The music director slammed open the door to Joey’s office and stalked inside, pulling Joey up by his lapels.

“FIX THIS, IDIOT.” He growled.

“Sammy?” Joey asked, a little shaken.

“Who the fuck else would it be?” Sammy snapped. “Now fix this!” Joey stumbled back, grabbing for his book.

“Well, I’m not exactly sure what to do here…” He said, beginning to flip the pages. “I’m not even sure what happened to you.”

“So what you’re saying is, you don’t know how to fix this?” Sammy grew eerily calm for a moment.

“Well…..No,” Joey said. The toons and Henry burst in just in time to stop Sammy from attempting to throttle Joey. The creator ducked behind a very confused Boris as Henry hoisted Sammy up.

“Sam- Sammy calm- Oof!” Henry tried to calm Sammy down while the other man flailed wildly, still trying to get at Joey and screaming curses as he struggled.

“Whoa! Whoa! Cool it, Lawrence!” Bendy said.

“DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN! I’M GOING TO KILL HIM FOR THIS!” Sammy struggled even harder. “HE BROUGHT IN THAT DAMN MACHINE!”

“Sammy! I don’t want to have to put you in a corner!” Henry said, adopting his dad voice.

“I’m a grown ass man, Henry! You can’t put me in a corner!”

“I will if you don’t stop it!”

Sammy stopped struggling for a moment, as if considering whether or not Henry would actually put him in a timeout in the corner like a child. He seemed to decide that, yes, Henry would do that, and stopped attempting to kill Joey for the moment.

“Sammy, go take a break,” Bendy said, rubbing what would probably be his temples. “I’m gonna try to figure this out with Joey, alright?”

“Fine.” Sammy hunched his shoulders and stormed out of the room, his body dripping ink as he went.

.

.

Sammy wasn’t able to go home for the next couple of days. Whatever had happened to him, it seemed to have put a tether on him. He couldn’t leave the studio or his form would begin to collapse. This gave Sammy ample ammunition to complain, and complain he did, but it was less than usual. He spent a lot of time in his office, listening to the radio and pouring over music sheets. It seemed as though this transformation had genuinely scared him. Which led him to the colored ink.

“Don’t the toons drink this stuff like alcohol?” Sammy asked, holding up a bottle of colored ink. He’d been following Henry around for the past half an hour or so, dressed in a ratty pair of Boris’ old overalls.

“Well….yeah,” Henry said. “But I’d probably advise against you doing that since you’re still kind of human-” Sammy took a large swig. “Or just ignore me. That works too.” It wasn’t like he’d expected anything else from Sammy. He shuffled off to his desk to keep working, leaving Sammy to find the toons so he could experiment with the colored ink. He showed up in Bendy’s office, an empty purple inkwell in his hand.

“It just occurred to me that the fate of my human form rests in the hands of Joey Drew.” He announced. “I’m doomed, aren’t I?” He hadn’t yet noticed, but his previously black inky body had turned a very nice lavender.

“Sammy, you haven’t been drinking colored ink, have you?” Alice asked, rushing to take the inkwell from him.

“I thought I’d try it,” Sammy said, seating himself in a chair in front of Bendy’s desk. “Since I’m literally made of ink now. Oh God. I’m going to be stuck like this for the rest of my life.”

“No, no you’re not,” Alice said. “Joey will fix this.”

“It’s Joey,” Sammy said. “I’m never going to be normal again.”

“Let’s try a different color.” Bendy opened his desk drawer, taking out a collection of colored inks. “Pick your poison, Lawrence.” Sammy had devolved into frantic muttering to himself. So this was what he was like when he was scared. It was frankly a little off-putting. Of course, Sammy smiling was even more strange.

“Why don’t we try yellow?” Alice suggested, pushing the yellow bottle towards Sammy. He eyed it, then knocked it back. The toons watched as yellow began to replace purple on Sammy’s body. His frantic muttering quickly turned into giggles, which turned into roaring laughter. This was definitely weirder than seeing Sammy scared.

“You know, it’s actually kind of funny.” He said as he laughed. “Joey and Henry are the ones who love cartoons so much, but I’m the one who gets half turned into one!” He held up his four-fingered hand to his face and laughed harder.

“Okay, I’m uncomfortable,” Bendy said. “Anyone else uncomfortable?” Boris nodded. Alice made a noncommittal shrugging motion.

“Let’s see what red does,” Bendy muttered to himself, sliding the red bottle over. It took a minute or so to get Sammy to stop laughing enough to get the ink down. Then the red spread across his body and he stopped laughing.

“Huh…I don’t actually feel that much angrier.” He frowned and looked at the bottle. “Are you sure it’s supposed to work?” All the toons just stared at him. Red had done nothing to him. Good lord, just how angry was he on a regular basis?

“Sammy, I think we need to get you into anger management,” Alice said gently. Sammy just rolled his eyes and grabbed a different bottle. This one turned out to be blue, and a bad decision.

“Shit, now I feel worse,” Sammy muttered, turning blue. “Can I have the yellow again? I liked the way that felt.”

“Sure.” Bendy slid the yellow bottle back to Sammy, settling back in his chair. It was kind of fun to watch Sammy sample a part of their world, not to mention seeing how it affected him. He’d been a little surprised when Sammy hadn’t seemed drunk after drinking the ink. Evidently, it just changed his emotions. Sammy was soon back to laughing. The toons found out that afternoon that Sammy was actually rather pleasant to be around when he was in a good mood. They’d been too freaked out last time to spend any time with him, but now he was stuck with them until Joey fixed him. While under the influence of the yellow ink, he played some happy tunes on the piano jammed into a corner of Bendy’s office and danced with Alice. He was a surprisingly good dancer, something Alice filed away in her memory for further use. It was nice.

Eventually, the ink did wear off, but Sammy still stuck around. He didn’t feel too comfortable going out and mingling with the other employees looking the way he did. He spent more time with the toons during his week as an ink creature than he ever had with anyone else in the studio, save maybe Susie. It was comforting for him to be around them. They didn’t look at him strangely, even the way he was.

“Sammy, you done with those songs yet?” Bendy asked, swinging himself inside on the doorknob.

“Not yet. I keep dripping on the paper and it ruins everything.” Behind Sammy was a pile of papers about as tall as he was. Each was smudged beyond recognition with ink. The music director was trying to put on a facade of calm, but Bendy could see how agitated he was by how much Sammy was melting.

“Just take a few deep breaths, okay Sammy?” Bendy put his hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“You don’t know that, boss.” Sammy’s voice was soft, defeated.

“Don’t you have any faith in me?” Bendy asked, feigning a hurt expression. “Honestly, I’m insulted.” He smiled when he saw Sammy rolling his eyes.

“I’m gonna go see how Alice is doing,” Sammy said, getting up. “I need a break.”

By the end of the week, Sammy was back to normal. Joey had managed to pull something out of his ass and reverse engineer whatever black magic had done this to Sammy in the first place. Sammy almost cried when he could see his skin again. He was gone for the next couple of days, both by choice and by order of Bendy. When he came back, things almost felt the same as normal. Except…Sammy spent his free time with the toons. He sat and listened as Susie and Alice sang, played music with Boris, drank with Bendy. It wasn’t the same as before, but it certainly put Sammy in a better mood. Everyone seemed to agree that this normal was a better one than before. Even if Sammy did seem a little more peeved off at Joey than before.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was the first appearance of Cordelia, who's become a bit of a mainstay in my BATIM stories

Sammy had a fan. This in itself wasn’t all that unusual. Sammy got a lot of letters from aspiring musicians saying how they enjoyed the music he composed. But this was different. This time the fan was a little girl who wanted to compose music like Sammy someday. It was the cutest thing any of them had ever seen because almost no one had ever approached Sammy in such a way. Everyone in the studio assumed he was terrible with children due to his…well….everything. His other fan letters were formal, poised, every pen stroke thought out in advance. The little girl’s letters were a little messy, a bit crude, and usually included little tunes she’d thought up. At first, Sammy had hidden the letters, but the curiosity of his coworkers had gotten the better of him.

“So a little girl just wrote to you?” Joey asked, looking at Sammy. “That’s so cute! You’re her role model!”

“Joey no.”

“Who would’ve thought you’d be good with children.” Henry laughed and shook his head.

“I’m regretting showing you the letters.” Sammy groaned, slamming his head onto the desk. “Look, it’s not a big deal. We get fan letters all the time.”

“Yeah, but you never get any from kids!” Boris said, tail wagging. “This is amazing!” Sammy groaned louder.

“It is really sweet,” Alice said. “What’s her name again?”

“Cordelia Bell. She draws little bells next to her name.” Sammy lifted his head to point at the little bells right next to Cordelia’s scribbled name.

“That’s so %$#@ing cute I can’t even take it,” Bendy said, holding the letter up. “You’ve been writing back to her?”

“……Yes.” Sammy mumbled, head on the desk again.

“Attaboy!” Joey slapped his back. “Maybe more people will like you this way!”

“I don’t care about people liking me.” Sammy gestured vaguely with one free hand. “You all should know that.”

“Obviously you care about this girl liking you,” Alice said, leaning on Sammy’s shoulder.

“Always good to know your black little heart is still working.” Bendy slapped Sammy’s back as well.

“She’s ten. I’m not gonna break her heart.” Sammy said. “I’m not that evil.”

“Still, good job,” Henry said, leaning against the door. “It’s really sweet to know you’ve got a little fan." Sammy muttered something that was probably supposed to be rude, snatching the letters back from the rest of the staff. He was smiling a little as he shooed them out, looking down at the letters. He kept writing the little girl, continuing to encourage her down on her path. To see someone else so dedicated to music, it warmed his heart. He liked corresponding with her, remembering when the world had been new and possibilities had been endless. Years later he got a knock on his door.

“I’m busy. Go away.” He said, chewing vigorously on his cigarette.

“Mr. Lawrence?” A young woman’s voice came from just outside his office.

“What?” He turned around, glowering at the girl standing in the doorway. The girl’s face lit up. She was clutching a clipboard to her chest. There was something familiar about her, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen her before.

“My name is Cordelia Bell. You probably don’t remember me, but I remember you.” She said. “I’m going to be working under you from today on.”


	19. Chapter 19

Based on these posts:  
https://doodledrawsthings.tumblr.com/post/161853850317/galactiicstarr-after-reading-the-ask-of-sammys  
http://ka-star.tumblr.com/post/161852364954/is-sammy-ever-happy-or-just-247-im-done-with

* * *

  
One time, Sammy had come to work in a good mood. And everyone lost it. Sammy was smiling as he entered the studio, humming to himself. Everyone froze and just stared. No one had seen Sammy actually smile before. They’d seen him smirk, sure, but never genuinely smile. It was…really weird. They hadn’t been aware his face could actually make that expression.

“Bendy!” Boris burst into Bendy’s office, slamming the door open. “Sammy’s doing something weird with his face!”

“Boris, it’s too early for this.” Bendy groaned. “Whatever Sammy’s doing, it can wait.”

“I…I think he’s smiling.”

“WHAT?!” Bendy jumped up from his chair, eyes wide. Boris ushered him out and to the music department. Sammy was whistling, whistling!, as he unlocked the door to his office.

“What the @#%*?” Bendy whispered.

“I don’t know what he’s doing with his face,” Boris whispered back. “Is…Is he smiling?”

“Sure…Sure looks like it, buddy. I’mma go talk to him.” He pushed past Boris and went down. He took a moment to compose himself and went in.

“Heya Sammy.” Bendy knocked on the music director’s door. “How…How’s it going?”

“Pretty well, all things considering,” Sammy said, continuing to smile. He hung his coat up and began to prepare his desk.

“Good good.” Bendy nodded. “Uh…What are you doing with your face?”

“I’m smiling.” Sammy frowned a bit. “Have you never seen someone smile before, boss?”

“Right, of course. Uh, I should probably get back to work.” Bendy said, making a beeline for the door as quickly as he could. He spent a while just standing to there, watching as Sammy worked. The music director worked on compositions, singing along to the radio louder than Bendy had ever heard him do before. He seemed to genuinely be in a good mood and it was so….weird.

“What are you doing down here?” He heard Alice approaching from behind. “I’ve been looking all over for y-” She stopped when she saw Sammy.

“Is he…Smiling?”

“It’s weird, right?” Bendy said. “I mean, I’m glad he’s happy, but it’s just so…”

“Unusual.” Alice finished. “We gotta show everyone else.”

Soon everyone was gathered outside Sammy’s office, staring inside at Sammy. Somehow he hadn’t yet noticed them. He tended to get like that when he was working, which worked pretty well for the rest of them.

“My glasses must be broken,” Henry said, taking them off and looking them over. Joey just stared, unable to wrap his head around what he was seeing. Never in his life had he seen Sammy smile. It just didn’t happen. Boris was still freaking out about this whole thing. He didn’t do too well with change and this was a huge change. Maybe this was a sign of the apocalypse. Like the four horsemen or something. Eventually, Sammy opened the door and found them staring.

“Just how long have you all been there?” He asked, his smiling fading a little bit.

“……Awhile.”

“I don’t get why you’re all making such a big deal about me smiling. That is what this is about, right?” Sammy leaned up against the doorframe. He was actually laughing quite a bit. This floored everyone even more. When was the last time Sammy had genuinely laughed at something?

“……..Yes.”

Sammy rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Here’s the new music. I’m not going to let you all ruin my day.”

“Why are you so happy?” Henry asked.

“That’s my secret,” Sammy said, winking. “Now scram, the lot of you. I’ve got work to do.” Then he slammed the door in their faces. Everyone dispersed, and things mostly returned to normal. Except Sammy kept smiling throughout the whole day. The next day he was back to his normal self, but it wasn’t the last time this would happen. No matter how many times they saw Sammy smile, which didn’t happen very often, they still freaked out.


	20. Chapter 20

Based on this post:  
https://doodledrawsthings.tumblr.com/post/161715779212/sammy-mixes-that-clear-thin-glue-in-with

* * *

  
Ever since Bendy had discovered invisible ink, no one had been safe. The studio had thought the little demon was a prankster before, but now he could literally turn invisible. This led to him playing pranks he normally wouldn’t have been able to get away with, such as stealing Joey’s glasses as he was using them, messing up the band during rehearsal, stealing Alice’s halo while she sang. His favorite person to prank though, was always Sammy Lawrence. The music director was notoriously high strung so it was easy as pie to get a reaction out of him. Bendy’s favorite prank was to stand by Sammy’s radio and turn it off while Sammy was listening to it. This would lead to at least a half an hour of Sammy turning the radio back on, Bendy turning it off, and the cycle repeating again until either the ink wore off or Sammy started throwing things. The latter was generally more likely. It was almost a weekly occurrence to see an almost imperceptible blur running out of Sammy’s office while the music director screamed obscenities It was how the studio members judged Bendy’s stress level. If he was pranking Sammy, it meant he was in a generally good mood.

Now, Sammy was getting pretty fucking tired of being messed with, so he decided to concoct a plan of revenge. He took Bendy’s bottle of invisible ink and mixed clear glue into it. That would show the little bastard. All he had to do now was wait. It didn’t take long for Bendy to get in the mood and when the demon drank the ink, Sammy was waiting. Bendy put down the bottle and rubbed his hands together as he disappeared from sight. Sammy could still make out a vague outline as Bendy began to move towards his office. Bendy’s hand closed around the knob and he let himself in. However, a problem arose when he tried to let go of the doorknob. His hand held firm, even as he shook and pulled. Soon he had his feet up on the door to pull, which only led to them getting stuck as well.

“SAMMY!” He yelled. Sammy sauntered into view, looking quite pleased with himself.

“I can play pranks too, shitlips.” He said, smirking.

“Sammy, get me off here!” Bendy yelled. “Right now!”

“If I do that I’m gonna be stuck too. So no thanks.” Sammy said, turning away. “Don’t worry, it’ll probably wear off once the ink does. See ya tomorrow, boss.”

“SAMMY DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME HERE! SAMMY! SAMMY LAWRENCE DON’T YOU WALK AWAY!”

Sammy whistled as he made his way up the stairs and out of the music department. After that, Bendy didn’t play pranks on Sammy anymore. He didn’t even go near the music department for an entire month. When he did, he was wary of Sammy. Slowly though, things began to return to normal. But Bendy never played a prank on Sammy again. He knew what would happen if he did.


	21. Chapter 21

I went to the beach with my friends yesterday and so I wanted to write this. After all, you gotta have a beach episode. 

* * *

 

The employees of Joey Drew Studios were going to the beach. The toons themselves weren’t going to be swimming since they didn’t know what effect water would have on them, but they were all going nonetheless. It was the middle of summer, and everyone was getting a little antsy being cooped up in that studio all day. All except Sammy Lawrence, who most of the studio was half convinced would burst into flames in direct sunlight. Alice, Susie, and the new intern had been sent down to attempt to coax him out. Joey, Henry, Bendy, and Boris waited by the door. Joey had managed to wrestle Bendy into a ridiculous looking bathing suit, complete with a little sailor hat and innertube, which the demon kept trying to take off when no one was looking.

“I’m not even gonna go swimming.” He complained, folding his arms. “I shouldn’t have to wear this. Why can’t I go in one of my disguises?”

“I think it looks nice,” Boris said. He’d been given a similar outfit, minus the sailor hat. “Plus, we match!”

“It’s cute,” Henry said, desperately trying not to break down laughing. Joey just stood there, oblivious as usual, and very proud of his work.

“Shut your trap.” Bendy glared at Henry, then turned his attention back to the hallway. “How long’s it gonna take the girls to get Sammy up here?”

“Oh, you know how stubborn Sammy can be,” Joey said. “It could take a little.” A few minutes later, the women surface, dragging Sammy behind them. Susie and Alice had his arms, while Cordelia was pushing him from the back. To his credit, Sammy was putting up one hell of a fight.

“OPEN THE DOOR!” Susie yelled. The men scrambled to get the door open, Henry making a beeline for the van they were taking. He got the doors open and the women threw Sammy into the back, the car taking off before the music director had a chance to escape. Bendy momentarily forgot how angry he was about his stupid outfit, instead focusing on how hilarious it was to see Sammy acting like a cat that was being taken to the vet.

“I hate all of you,” Sammy said, slouching in his seat. “You know I hate the beach. There’s always fucking sand everywhere.”

“Oh come on,” Alice said. “You haven’t left your office for nearly a week. A little break will do you some good.”

“At least you didn’t actually burst into flames in the sunlight.” Susie laughed. “Half the studio thinks you’re a vampire.”

“They do not.” Sammy snapped.

“They kind of do,” Cordelia said sheepishly.

“At least you’re not wearing somethin’ like this.” Bendy gestured to himself. Sammy looked Bendy over, took out his cigarette, then started laughing uproariously.

“Yeah yeah, get it out of your system.” Bendy went back to sulking. At least Sammy was in a better mood now. This trip wouldn’t be any fun if Sammy was in one of his famous foul moods.

The drive lasted about a half an hour as they headed for the coast. The girls talked in the back, Sammy sandwiched in between Susie and Cordelia. Bendy looked out the window. He was excited about this, although he wasn’t about to admit it. He’d never been so far away from the studio before. Boris’ tail kept hitting him in the leg, so he knew his best friend was excited as well. Even Alice seemed excited. She’d even donned a bathing costume, despite the fact that none of them could go swimming. It was a nice day to go to the beach. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, it wasn’t too hot out. As soon as the van parked outside the beach, everyone was out of the car, scrambling towards the sand. Cordelia wanted to swim no matter what, discarding her overcoat to reveal her bathing suit. She jumped right in and contented herself in swimming.

“Ah, the vitality of youth.” Joey sighed, setting up a lawn chair.

“Makes me feel old just watching her.” Henry settled down beside his friend. Boris set to work digging a hole. Alice started making a sandcastle, with Susie’s help. Sammy set up a chair, opened an umbrella, and stubbornly laid down and refused to do anything else.

“I vote we bury him once he’s asleep,” Alice whispered, smiling conspiratorially. Susie grinned back at her and nodded. Bendy just sort of hovered, unsure what to do. The beach they’d chosen was a private one, where they likely wouldn’t be bothered, so he didn’t really have to worry about someone stumbling on them and being exposed. So Bendy sat with Henry and Joey.

“You two go to the beach often?” He asked.

“Does it look like we spend a lot of time outside?” Henry said.

“Alright alright.” Bendy wriggled out of his innertube. ”You bring your kids here Henry?”

“Sometimes.” Henry leaned back in his chair. “My daughter really likes to swim. Kinda like Dee.”

“You ever wish you had kids, Joey?” Bendy glanced at the other animator.

“I’m married to my work,” Joey said, folding his arms and shaking his head solemnly.

“You could at least buy me a drink, first.” Bendy grinned, elbowing Joey in the ribs. Joey just rolled his eyes, while Henry took the opportunity to elbow Bendy back. This led to a shoving contest which ended with Bendy getting buried up to his neck, right beside Sammy.

“I’m gonna be cleaning sand out from everywhere,” Sammy grumbled. Still, he seemed like he was having fun nonetheless.

“Oh don’t be such a grump.” Susie tapped his nose. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Yeah yeah. Just put some sunscreen on my face, okay?”

The day was uneventful other than that. It was a nice break from all the deadlines that they had to finish. But the next day it was back to the studio and back to their work.


	22. Chapter 22

I’m in the mood to write something sad. So I decided to write about people Bendy cares about dying.

* * *

 

Bendy had never been any good at goodbyes. As far as he was concerned, they were things that happened to other people. He was a cartoon living with other cartoons. They didn’t age, they didn’t change, they were the same for all eternity. He, Boris, and Alice were going to stay the same for as long as their existences would last. Sure, he’d known Henry and Sammy and Joey weren’t going to live forever, but he hadn’t ever wanted to consider that. They were his family, the only people he could ever rely on. He didn’t want to think about a world where they weren’t there. He wasn’t prepared to deal with something like that. Besides, he didn’t have time to be thinking about things like that. He had a studio to run, deadlines to meet, cartoons to make. He buried himself in his work so that he wouldn’t have to face the mortality of the people he cared most about. Time marched on unbidden though, and soon enough the staff began dying.

.

Sammy was the first to go. Lung cancer, the doctors said. By the time they’d caught it, it was too late to save the music director. Some of the employees at the studio tried to convince him to fight, but he knew it was too late for that. He checked himself into a hospice and said goodbye to everyone. Bendy had stayed in his office for the going away party, unable to go down there and face what was happening. It was bad enough seeing the grey in everyone’s hair, how slowly they had begun to move.

“Everyone’s asking for you,” Alice said, opening the door.

“I’ll be down in a minute.” He waved a hand dismissively.

“You said that an hour ago, Bendy,” Alice said. “You’re not going to come down, are you?”

“I will.” He snapped. He hunched over his desk, shuffling through paperwork. Sammy’s final notice, insurance payments. There was a tightness in his chest. He was sure if he just kept working it would go away. It only grew stronger with the passing of time, though. When Henry went, dying in his sleep, it was like Bendy couldn’t breathe. Every breath was short and gasping. His eyes stung. He worked even harder, positive it would go away this time. He didn’t have time for grief. He had to do this. Alice and Boris both left him alone, absorbed in their own grieving. They knew better than to push him before he was ready. He was forced to face his feelings after Joey died. His heart had given out, the doctors said. Alice found Bendy in his office again as the funeral went on downstairs.

“You really should go downstairs this time.” She said.

“Nah, funerals aren’t my style.” Bendy shook his head. “Everyone’s always so serious. You’d think someone died or something.” He laughed, but it was hollow.

“Joey’s dead, Bendy,” Alice said.

“I know.” Bendy nodded, trying to keep smiling. “I just…Maybe if I don’t go downstairs…Maybe he’ll still come in Monday. Him and Henry and Sammy…If I just…If I just keep working, maybe they won’t be…” He trailed off, trying to fight back tears.

“It’s not going to stop them from being dead.” Alice put a hand on his shoulder. It sunk in a little, given that Bendy’s form was beginning to go a little gooey.

“I know that. I know. I just…” He just what? What was he supposed to say? That he had hoped the staff would just live forever? He didn’t know what he’d expected. People died, it was just a fact of life. But that wasn’t the way things worked for toons. Toons didn’t die. So long as they were drawn and remembered, they’d stay alive. God knew what was going to happen to him, Alice, and Boris, but they certainly weren’t about to die any time soon.

“Boris needs his friend. Please, come down.” Alice said. Bendy sighed and got up from his chair. Boris had taken it the hardest. The wolf toon was reduced to a blubbering mess while Bendy and Alice patted his back and assured him it was going to be okay. The other employees of the studio milled around in the conference room. There was a picture of Joey on some kind of altar, and a podium beside it where people could speak. At the moment one of Joey’s friends was talking. It was mostly about what a great guy he’d been, and how much this animation studio had meant to him and to all of them. Once Boris was able to form coherent sentences again, Bendy took the podium. He cleared his throat a few times, tapped the microphone.

“Alright, everyone.” He said, hoping they couldn’t hear how much his voice was shaking. “I’m gonna say a few words. Joey Drew…He was a real asshole sometimes.” Laughter rippled through the room. “No, really, he was. Brought me into the world and didn’t even make me on-model! I mean, how ridiculous is that?”

“He flooded the music department fifteen times!” Someone from the back shouted.

“Yeah! He did that!” Bendy motioned towards the speaker. “He was an asshole! But I guess I didn’t hate the guy. He was decent at his job, usually met his deadlines. He made…all this.” He gestured around the studio. “And I am gonna miss that bastard like crazy. Even if he did try to summon Satan every other Thursday.” He could feel himself losing his composure and stepped down, retreating to his office once more. He’d done his job. He cried that night, more than he’d ever cried in his life. Alice and Boris joined him, the three of them huddling together to form one amorphous blob of ink on the floor of Bendy’s office. When morning came, the tears had stopped. They all got up, dusted themselves off, and went to work. They had a job to do after all. The show had to go on.

.

_Years later, three kids walked into Bendy’s office. Two held notebooks full to bursting with doodles and designs, pencils tucked behind their ears and ink staining their shirts. The third sulked behind his friends, a banjo strapped to his back and music sheets bursting from a book in his back pocket. Bendy smiled as they tried to make their case for their suitability to work at the studio. They hadn’t changed at all, had they? Once they were finished, he stood up._

_“Gentlemen, welcome to Hell’s Studio. We’re glad to have you back.”_


	23. Chapter 23

dreamnoteprincess asked: Well for the fanfic since you did proposal. Let's move on to the Hell's Studio Wedding, where Joey has to walk Susie down the isle, Henry is the best man, and I don't with anyone else what their roles, but it has to be the best wedding for Susie and Sammy.

* * *

  
Sammy and Susie’s wedding was a very private affair. Sammy didn’t have much in the way of family, and besides, they had actual living breathing cartoons attending. That had to be kept on the down low. So only close friends and relatives were present. Susie’s family were a little…unnerved at first when they showed up and there were three living cartoons walking around as if nothing was wrong. Alice served as the maid of honor, since she and Susie were practically sisters, while Henry was Sammy’s best man. It had been decided that Joey would walk Susie down the aisle, as her father had some mobility issues. Bendy was the ringbearer since Boris wanted to be the flower girl. They’d gotten him a cute little dress and everything. Meanwhile, Norman was on organ. Wally was just sort of…there. He didn’t have anything specifically to do so he just hung out and existed. A few of Susie and Sammy’s relatives struck up a conversation with him. The venue was a park a few miles from the studio. They’d set everything up so the ceremony would take place in a gazebo, with the guests sitting in folding chairs. A church had been out of the question, given what had happened last time Bendy had been in one. Neither Susie nor Sammy had minded, despite how much Sammy had complained about the bugs.

“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Sammy muttered as he adjusted his bowtie for the millionth time.

“Stop fiddling with it, Sammy,” Bendy said. “Everything’s gonna be fine!”

“He’s right. You need to stop worrying.” Henry said, putting a hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “I made sure Joey didn’t do anything weird.” He whispered, soft enough that Joey couldn’t hear him. “I checked the whole place out.”

“Thanks.” The corners of Sammy’s mouth twitched up. He could always count on Henry to make sure things went smoothly.

“No problem,” Henry said. “This is important.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Joey asked, sidling a bit closer.

“Nothing,” Sammy said quickly.

“Hey, where’s Boris?” Bendy suddenly asked, trying to get attention away from the hushed conversation. The trick worked and Joey’s attention was immediately drawn elsewhere.

“I think he went out to find some flowers to throw.” Joey looked back to the entrance of the tent they’d set up. “He said something about fresh flowers?”

“Just hope no one has an allergic reaction,” Sammy muttered.

“Hopefully not,” Henry said.

“I found flowers!” Boris reentered the tent, holding a basket of dandelions and tulips.

“Where’d you get those?” Bendy asked.

“I picked ‘em!” Boris said brightly. “Now I can toss the flowers!”

“Nice job, big guy,” Henry said, patting the wolf’s back. “Now, we should probably get moving. The ceremony’ll start soon. Don’t want to miss your own wedding, do you, Sammy?”

“Susie’d kill me.” Sammy couldn’t help but smile.

“Well, let’s get going then!” Joey headed for the gazebo. “I just hope I won’t cry too much. Wouldn’t want to embarrass you two too much.”

“We all know you’re going to bawl like a baby,” Sammy said. “We wouldn’t have it any other way, though.”

And with that, they made their way to the gazebo, where the minister was waiting. The guests were waiting. Sammy’s mother, normally a very composed woman, dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Sammy started fiddling with his bowtie again. This was happening. It was really happening. He almost couldn’t believe it. He turned his gaze back to the aisle. Bendy and Boris stood together, ready to do their duties. Catching Sammy’s eye, Bendy gave the music director an enthusiastic thumbs up. Then Susie arrived. Susie was a modest person, so she’d chosen a dress that was simple, not too frilly. It suited her quite well, and to Sammy, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Alice walked directly behind her, holding some of the flowers Boris had picked. Joey was at her arm, dabbing at his eyes as he began to walk Susie down the aisle. Boris sprung into action, walking in front of the bridal procession, throwing flowers and happily doing his job.

“Nice job,” Henry whispered to Boris as the wolf passed. Susie, Alice, and Joey reached the gazebo and took their places. Joey scrambled back to his seat in the front row beside Wally. With everyone there, the minister cleared his throat and began. Normally, Sammy wasn’t a terribly religious person, but for Susie, he was willing to make an exception. Not to mention his mother had wanted a Christian wedding as well. He just stared into Susie’s eyes as the minister spoke. The prospect of spending the rest of his life with her honestly excited him. She was one of the best friends he’d ever had and he loved her more than he could possibly put into words. They’d discussed whether or not they’d change their names and decided against it since they were both so fiercely independent. Soon enough, the time came to exchange vows. Bendy proudly presented the rings, winking at both Sammy and Susie.

“Do you, Samuel Horace Lawrence, take Susie Alice Campbell to be your lawfully wedded wife?” The minister asked. Sammy took a deep breath and slipped the ring onto Susie’s finger.

“I do.”

“And do you, Susie Alice Campbell-”

“Of course I do.” Susie interrupted the minister, putting her own ring on Sammy’s finger. Sammy tried not to laugh at this. That would be rude, and his mother was watching. God he loved her. Alice had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing. The minister frowned but quickly regained his composure.

“Very well. I pronounce you husband and wife.” He said. “You may kiss the bride.” Even after all these years, Sammy still got a little nervous when it came to kissing Susie. He leaned forward, preparing himself. Susie then proceeded to grab his head and plant one on him. There was a whoop from the guests as Susie’s sister stood up and cheered her on. This time Sammy laughed.

“Way to take the initiative.” He said when she pulled away.

“Well, you weren’t going to do it.” She said with a little half smile.

“Alright!” Bendy grinned and applauded them. “Now, who wants cake?’

“I do!” Boris raised his hand, tail wagging. Bendy didn’t have the heart to tell him it had been a rhetorical question. The group made their way to the tent where the catering had been set up. Henry’s wife, Bella, had put herself in charge of the food. No one really trusted Joey to not sneak ink into the food. Henry’s kids went straight for the cake, jumping and begging for a slice.

“Hang on,” Henry said. “The couple’s got to cut the cake.” Susie and Sammy were the last to enter, walking arm in arm. Sammy was making a joke about how he’d half expected Bendy to pull some kind of prank on him. Susie agreed, adding that she was glad he hadn’t. She would have had to get a little…physical if he had.

“Reminds me of when we got married,” Bella said, leaning on Henry as the newlyweds made their way to the cake. “Although, we didn’t have living cartoons in attendance then.”

“It’s certainly interesting.” Henry agreed.

“Alright, settle down,” Sammy said as the kids clambered for the cake. “You’ll get your piece.” The cake was chocolate, Susie and Sammy’s favorite. Together, they cut the cake and began dishing it up. Henry’s children got the first few slices, then the toons got some, and finally the adults. Sammy stood back and watched everyone. How had he gotten to this point in his life? Sammy had honestly never expected to get married. He’d never expected to have such good friends or be part of something like Joey Drew Studios. It wasn’t what he’d expected from his life, but it was so much better than anything he could have ever predicted. Beside him, Susie squeezed his hand.

“I’m glad I met you.” She whispered.

“Yeah. Me too.” He said, leaning his head against hers. He could hear Henry yelling from somewhere to his left, trying to get Joey to stop doing something. Probably black magic. Bendy was running over, handing his cake off to Boris. Sammy smiled to himself. This…This was alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yet another guess at the name of Henry's wife, prior to learning of Linda's existence.


	24. Chapter 24

inkavixentheinkdemon asked: So, everyone in Hell's Studio goes on a vacation to the beach. Girls stay in one cabin, boys in the other. And the toons(except bendy) are in their own. Sammy is left with Joey and Bendy, because no-one wants to deal with ANY of their sh¡t. They go to swim in the ocean, and Bendy nearly drowns.

* * *

 

It was almost August and Joey had decided that they needed to go on a “company retreat”, which was a fancy way of saying they were going to the beach. Again. Sammy was in a much better mood now, so getting him to come along was a lot easier than it had been the first time. In fact, he came along willingly. A lot of the employees declined to come, for their own various reasons, so it ended up just being Sammy, Susie, Henry, Joey, Wally, Bendy, Boris, Alice, and Cordelia. Joey had rented a few cabins they could stay in over the weekend, stating it would be good ‘bonding’ time. Everyone was pretty sure he was just trying to avoid work though. On Friday, they all piled into Henry’s van and headed to the beach. It was mostly quiet since it’d been a long day and they were tired. Sammy, Susie, Wally, and Alice slept most of the way over. The only sounds in the car were Joey giving directions and Cordelia talking quietly with Bendy and Boris. The sun was setting by the time they got there.

“Okay, everybody up!” Joey said, leaning back to shout at the others. “We’re here~” Sammy grumbled out some very choice words, which Susie slapped his shoulder for, and they all stumbled out.

“Girls in one cabin, boys in another, and toys in the last one!” Joey explained as they gathered their luggage.

“Looks like we get a cabin all to ourselves,” Susie said, elbowing Cordelia gently. The smaller girl nodded.

“Man, this place is gonna be a sausage fest.” Wally groaned. “Why couldn’t more of the girls have come?”

“This isn’t an excuse for you to flirt with girls,” Sammy said, slapping the back of Wally’s head.

“Ow! Hey!”

“Let’s just go to bed,” Henry said. “We’re all tired. And Joey?”

“Yes?” Joey looked up from beginning to pull his suitcase across the sand.

“Please, don’t try to summon a sand golem.”

“You say that like I’m always practicing black magic.” Joey almost sounded offended.

“You are.” Everyone said together. Joey just shrugged and went back to pulling his suitcase. The others did the same, settling comfortably in their respective cabins. The girls’ cabin had more beds than they needed, given there were only two of them. The boys had just enough beds at four, and the toons were just fine. Most of them were asleep fairly quickly. Henry stayed up to make sure Joey was actually sleeping before going to bed himself. Thankfully, the night was uneventful. Henry was the first one up the next morning, given the fact that he had small children with a lot of energy. Once Joey was up, he pulled out some literal pots and pans, going outside to bang them together.

“Why in God’s name did he bring pots and pans?!” Sammy growled, doing everything in his power to stop himself from throttling his boss.

“Probably for cooking and probably for this,” Henry said, getting dressed as calmly as he could. The banging didn’t stop until Susie started throwing rocks.

“Glad to see everyone’s up,” Joey said once everyone had assembled.

“Joey, I swear to whatever god will have me if you do that again I will @#$%&*@#$^$&%@%@.” The rest of the sentence was incomprehensible as it devolved into a series of car horns, alarms, and squeaky toy noises. Joey just kept smiling, as if to say ‘you couldn’t hurt me if you tried’. Henry just sighed.

“So, what now, Joey?” He asked.

“Who wants to build sand castles?” Joey whipped out a bucket and a tiny plastic shovel, likely filched from Henry’s kids.

“Sandcastles?” Sammy asked incredulously.

“It’ll be fun,” Joey said.

“What are we, 12?” Wally asked, snorting. Joey’s smile grew wider, almost eerily so.

“It’s team building,” Joey said, looking a little hurt. “Don’t you think so, Cordelia?” Cordelia stiffened, shrinking back a little. Joey seemed to assume that since Cordelia was the youngest she’d be more receptive to it.

“I-I….I mean, it does seem fun.” She said. “I haven’t built a sandcastle in forever.”

“Okay, fine, we’ll do it. Quit picking on her.” Susie put a hand on her hip, staring Joey down. Joey just hummed and started handing out the equipment, all of which had been provided by Henry’s children. They naturally broke off into separate groups based on how much of a perfectionist each one of them was. Which meant Bendy and Sammy got exiled to make sure Joey didn’t try to create a sand golem.

“I hate this,” Sammy muttered, stabbing his little plastic shovel into the sand. “I hate sand.”

“You think you’re suffering?” Bendy said. “Sand sticks to me like I’m a magnet!”

“Come on, you two,” Joey said, patting their backs. “This is a retreat. We’re supposed to be having fun!” Some of them were, at least. The girls, along with Boris and Henry were managing to make a passable and castle. Susie and Alice were working on sculpting and shaping, while Henry was more structure. Boris was just digging a hole, which provided them with sand. Cordelia ran back and forth with a bucket bringing them water. Bendy got up.

“Sammy, watch Joey. I’m gonna go swimming.” He said, grabbing an innertube. Joey suddenly looked up, showing more fear than anyone had ever seen him express. He wasn’t able to stop the little demon before Bendy was in the water. Almost immediately, it was evident that something was wrong. Bendy’s form was diluting in the water, causing him to slip out of the inner tube. He’d floated out pretty far by that point and he didn’t float. He sank beneath the water, air bubbles the only thing signaling his position. Joey was on his feet in moments, screaming and running towards the water. This drew the attention of the others, who sprung into action. Henry, ever the problem solver, was the one who dove in, looking for the demon under the water. Bendy was barely the size of his hand when he located him, laying on the sand. He grabbed the demon and lifted him above the surface, swimming back.

“We need ink.” Those were his first words when he came ashore. “Lots of it.”

“We have some back at the cabin.” Alice’s voice was shaking as she stumbled back. Boris stayed by his friend’s side while she ran back to the cabin to get the bottles of ink.

“I tried to warn him,” Joey said. “I…He moved too quickly. I couldn’t tell him….”

“It’s going to be okay,” Susie assured them. “He’s not dead yet.” Sammy didn’t even know how to react. Toons were supposed to be immortal, he’d never expected this sort of thing to happen. Joey was the one who was taking it the worst. While Cordelia was outright sobbing, Joey was babbling quietly to himself. The toons were the closest things he had to children, and for all his strangeness, Joey cared about his work more than anything. The studio, the cartoons, they were everything to him. Alice returned a few minutes later with a large jar of ink. Henry uncapped it and shoved it in Bendy’s face. The tiny demon practically inhaled it, slowly growing back to his normal size.

“See? Everything’s fine.” Susie said, nodding to everyone. “He’s okay.”

“You had us worried sick!” Alice said, grabbing Bendy and pulling him into a hug. “Never do that again!” Boris joined the hug, holding both of the other toons as tight as he possibly could.

“It’s okay,” Joey said to himself. “It’s okay. Everything is fine.” Things returned to normal after that, but they weren’t quite 100%. Still, it was a nice break, aside from the little scare. But it certainly put the fear of mortality in the heart of one Joey Drew.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea when karaoke machines were invented, but they're here.

magicalmonsterhero asked: Ooh, what about a karaoke night story? Bonus points for Sammy singing a Sinatra tune/Susie performing a Beatles song.

* * *

 

 

Joey Drew Studios was having a karaoke night. It had been Joey’s idea, because of course it was, but they hadn’t really minded. It was a celebration for them completing a particularly difficult deadline. No one cared when Joey herded them into the break room, where he’d erected a sort of stage, with a karaoke machine set up on top of it.

“What’s this?” Bendy asked, sauntering in. “You expect us to sing?”

“Not if you don’t want to,” Joey said. “It’s not compulsive this time. Just having a little fun. Now, who wants to go first?” Henry shrugged and took the stage. He had a decent voice. Wally, as it turned out, could actually hold a tune fairly well.

“Church choir.” He explained to his shocked coworkers. “We went to church a lot when I was a kid.” Sammy, having a similar upbringing, nodded and raised a glass to the janitor. Joey was as tone deaf as they came, but he had a confidence very few of them possessed. He sounded like a dying cat, but damn did he believe in himself. Even Norman got up and sang the Batman theme song, which consisted of him just singing Batman over and over.

“Thank you, Norman,” Joey said, clapping enthusiastically. “That was very nice!”

“It was something alright.” Sammy nodded. Susie swatted at his shoulder. “Hey! I never said it was bad!”

“So, who’s next?” Joey asked, looking around.

“I think it’s time I showed you how it’s done.” Bendy got up, stretching dramatically. “Angel? You wanna do a duet with me?”

“Sure, why not?” She shrugged and got up on the stage next to him. They were pretty good, although Bendy was certainly hamming it up. He’d forgotten just how much he liked performing. He’d been cooped up in the studio for so long, working himself to the bone. Now he was back in his element. Alice stepped down after two songs, but Bendy kept singing until his voice was hoarse and he couldn’t sing anymore.

“Thank you, thank you.” He bowed grandly. The other employees applauded politely. It was a treat getting to see their boss let loose and have fun in a way that didn’t involve Sammy throwing things at him. They considered suggesting it again once this was over.

“Sammy-boy!” Bendy yelled as Sammy got up to get a drink. “Why don’t you sing a song?”

“You don’t want to hear me sing,” Sammy said, pouring himself a scotch.

“C’mon!” Wally said. “Even I did a song!” Sammy rolled his eyes, downed his scotch, and took the makeshift stage.

“Alright, fine.” He said. “But I’m a little out of practice.”

“What’ll you be singing?” Henry asked. Sammy didn’t answer, beginning to sing.

“And now, the end is near. And so I face the final curtain. My friend, I’ll say it clear. I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain. I’ve lived a life that’s full. I traveled each and every highway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way.” Sammy had a surprisingly rich singing voice. He was no Frank Sinatra, but he wasn’t half bad. Susie leaned on her hand and sipped her drink, delighting in how blown away the rest of her co-workers were. Up until this point, only she had seen this side of Sammy.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way.” Sammy completely lost himself in the song, slipping into the character of Frank Sinatra. “Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew. But through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out. I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way. I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried. I’ve had my fill, my share of losing. And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing. To think I did all that and may I say, not in a shy way. Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way.”

The music and his voice swelled. “For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels. The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.” Sammy waited as the instrumental played out before leaning in and whispering the final line. “Yes, it was my way.” Everyone was on their feet in moments, applauding. No one, save Susie, had ever heard him sing like that before.

“Your turn.” Sammy said, passing the microphone to her with a small smirk. Susie returned the smile, taking the stage. Everyone knew they were in for a treat. Susie had been hired based on her voice after all.

“I look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping.” Susie began, her voice drifting out across the darkened break room. “While my guitar gently weeps. I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping. Still my guitar gently weeps. I don’t know how nobody told you how to unfold your love. I don’t know how someone controlled you, they bought and sold you. I look at the world and I notice it’s turning. While my guitar gently weeps. With every mistake we must surely be learning. Still my guitar gently weeps. I don’t know how you were diverted, you were perverted too. I don’t know how you were inverted. No one alerted you. I look at you all I see the love there that’s sleeping. While my guitar gently weeps. Look at you all. Still my guitar gently weeps.” Her song was significantly shorter than Sammy’s, but time seemed to slow down as she sang. All eyes were fixed on Susie as she crooned into the microphone. If you closed your eyes, you could pretend you were in some smoky bar, listening to a glamorous lounge singer. Sammy sighed and leaned on his hand. God he loved her.

“Oh Susie, that was amazing!” Alice clapped her hands together.

“Thank you.” Susie blushed a little. “I haven’t sung like this in a while.”

“We have such talented people here,” Joey said. “You all make this place the best it could possibly be.”

“Getting a little sappy there, aren’t you, Drew?” Bendy asked, elbowing Joey gently in the ribs.

“I was just thinking about how glad I am that I met all of you.” Joey smiled softly. Everyone got very quiet. No one was entirely sure how to react to this situation. Joey didn’t get like this too often. So Bendy took the stage again, dragging Sammy with him, to sing another song. Everyone sang until they were too tired and too drunk to sing anymore. They spent the night at the studio since they were too drunk to drive home. It was like a big sleepover. It was…nice. Nice for all of them. Joey was the first one up the next day. He watched them, a faint smile on his face. He didn’t know what he’d do if any of them ever left. This was his family. They meant everything to him.


	26. Chapter 26

phoena12 asked:  
Heeeey I'm back from the dead \○□○/ May I request hell's studio au where Henry finds a sad joey drew moping in his office about a ritual gone wrong and Henry tries to cheer him up (it works!)

* * *

 

Henry had gotten used to a lot of weird things in knowing Joey Drew. Strangeness was par for course with someone like Joey. But the strangest thing Henry had ever witnessed was seeing Joey upset. Joey was the kind of person who tried to be relentlessly positive all the time. It was how he’d gotten through polio and how he intended to get through most of his life. Always look on the bright side, make the impossible possible, that was Joey’s motto. So when Henry entered Joey’s office to deliver his shots and found his old friend bent over a summoning circle sobbing, he was more than a little shocked and worried. Especially when he saw a body lying in the middle of the circle. It was a strange approximation of what Henry assumed was supposed to be a toon. Its chest seemed as though it had exploded outwards, its ribs sticking out like teeth in a gaping maw. Its face was contorted in a scream, hands reaching out towards Joey.

“Joey, what happened?!” Henry shut the door behind him, running to Joey’s side.

“I…I tried to summon another toon,” Joey said. “I thought it would be nice for Alice to have another angel around. A brother or something. It….I don’t know why it didn’t work this time. I had a character sheet drawn up and everything. But when I tried the ritual…He came out….He was screaming, struggling to breathe.”

“Hey, Joey, breathe,” Henry said, putting a hand on Joey’s back. HIs friend was starting to hyperventilate. Joey nodded, trying to get his breathing under control.

“You’re okay,” Henry said. “It’s going to be okay.” Already the body was beginning to melt back into ink again.

“I don’t understand why it didn’t work.” Joey began tapping his finger on the floorboards. “I did everything the same.”

“Hey, let’s get out of here.” Henry pulled Joey to his feet. “We can clean this up later. You shouldn’t keep looking at this thing.”

“But I have to figure out what went wrong, I have to-”

“No buts,” Henry said. “I’m taking you out to dinner. How’s Italian sound?”

“It sounds fine,” Joey said, straightening and dusting himself off. Henry led him out of the office. They took Joey’s car. Henry drove since Joey’s hands were shaking too much. Slowly, the other man began to regain his composure.

“Wally’s going to have a fit when he sees your office,” Henry said as they drove.

“Better him than Sammy,” Joey said, smiling. “I love him, really, I do, but his temper can get out of control sometimes.”

“Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point. He has calmed down a little now that’s he’s with Susie though.” Henry tried to hide his sigh of relief. Joey was starting to sound like his old self again.

“The two of them bring out the best in each other.” Joey nodded. They reached the restaurant and went in, getting a table fairly quickly. They had beat the dinner rush, thankfully, giving them a nice opportunity to talk and relax. Henry steered the conversation toward their college days. It was amazing how little Joey had changed since then. He was no longer naive or innocent, but he still had that stubborn optimism, that belief that the impossible could be made possible.

“Do you remember when we first made Bendy?” Henry asked.

“Of course!” Joey’s face split with a huge grin. “I do feel bad that I scared you so badly, by the way.” Henry had been plugging away on some homework when Joey had burst in and sprung his idea on Henry. Joey had wanted to do a cartoon about a mischievous demon, one who wasn’t inherently evil. Something about subverting expectations. Honestly, Henry hadn’t caught a lot of what Joey had said that first time. Joey had been talking so quickly it had been hard to keep up.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m used to it.” Henry reached over to pat Joey’s shoulder.

“You’re a good friend, Henry,” Joey said, his smile turning slightly mournful. “I’m glad I met you. I don’t think I could have made it this far on my own.”

“What are friends for?” Henry asked. “Besides, I couldn’t have gotten this far without you either.” Henry knew Joey’s downfall would inevitably be his desire to make the impossible possible, but that same desire had pushed the studio farther than it ever would have gone without Joey. Henry wouldn’t have it any other way.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We got a baby here~ A Samsie baby~ And yes, I did deliberately give her a music themed name.

that-girl-nix asked: If you're still doing the Hell's Studio prompts I have one for ya. Since ya wrote Sammy and Susie as a couple how about a story where the have a baby. Sammy's worried that they won't like him since he's a grouch, but when the baby comes and they bring the baby to the studio it turns out the baby is much like him in some ways. Like being calmed down by music, liking Alice, cries because of Joey, ect...

* * *

 

When Susie had announced she was pregnant, Sammy had freaked out. He wasn’t the best with small children. Or, at least, he was never quite sure how to deal with them. Contrary to popular belief, Sammy was actually quite good with children. He never dumbed anything down, never treated children like they were stupid. His coworkers would have been blown away if they’d seen him interact with a child. Babies were a different matter though. Babies were just so tiny and loud and....strange. Everyone told him it would be different when it was his own though. He took their word for it, just trying to help Susie whenever he could. Secretly, though, he still worried. He wanted to be a good father for his child and a good husband for Susie. When the day came, everything was pandemonium. The two of them drove to the hospital in a frenzy. Susie was the calmer of the two, although she was still screaming because of the contractions. But Sammy was a mess. Susie was in pain and she was about to push a baby out of her and he didn’t know how to deal with that. He didn’t have a lot of friends, nor did he have any sisters, so he’d never experienced this before. Henry, being the only one with actual children, showed up prepared. He had a bag and everything. 

“You need to breathe, both of you.” He said once he arrived. 

“I’m working on it,” Susie said through gritted teeth. 

“That means you too, Sammy.” 

“I’M TRYING!” Sammy snapped, briefly ceasing his pacing. He’d been walking back and forth ever since they’d gotten there and he’d called everyone. Joey was in the waiting room, along with Alice, Boris, Bendy, Norman, and Wally. 

“Sammy, really, you need to calm down.” Henry put his hands on Sammy’s shoulders. “I mean it. You’re no good to her if you’re a wreck.” 

“Remember your breathing exercises,” Susie said. She was surprisingly calm for someone about to push a baby out of her. Sammy took a few shaky breaths. For her, he’d try to calm down. For her, it was worth it. The birth proceeded without complication. Henry was sent out of the room for the actual birth, but Sammy was there to hold Susie’s hand. The baby that came out was, in Joey’s humble opinion, the grumpiest looking baby in the world. It was a girl, and they decided to name her Aria. Aria was an exceptionally chubby baby who had her father’s perpetual scowl. 

“Are babies supposed to look like that?” Bendy asked as they all crowded around Susie’s hospital bed. “It looks...weird.”

“All babies look weird when they’re first born,” Alice said, swatting at his head. 

“Well,” Wally looked from Aria to Sammy. “You two got the same frown. Definitely your kid, Sammy.” 

“You say that like there was any doubt.” Sammy snapped, mostly out of nervousness. He was honestly a little worried he’d somehow screwed up their baby with his genetics. She wasn’t a very happy baby those first few nights.

“She’s just a fussy baby,” Susie assured him. “Some babies are like that.” Then she started to sing a lullaby to little Aria. Immediately the baby’s demeanor changed. She stopped crying and stared up at her mother in wonder. When Susie stopped, Aria screwed her face up and started crying again. So Susie started singing again, until she couldn’t sing anymore. 

“Why don’t you play her a song?” She said, handing the baby off to Sammy. “My voice is getting hoarse.” Aria only seemed to cry louder when handed off to Sammy, which initially caused him to panic. 

“Keep calm.” Susie kissed his cheek as she went to get coffee from the kitchen. Sammy took Aria over to the piano, settling her down on his lap as he began to play Sheep’s Songs from the Bendy cartoons. It was one of his favorite songs that he’d composed after all, and it was a song written for children. Aria’s face lit up as he began to play and sing softly. She burbled happily and clapped her hands. Sammy smiled softly, kissing her head. Aria kept clapping, as if demanding more music. The others had been right. It was different when the baby was yours. 

As it turned out, Aria was a lot more like Sammy than he’d ever anticipated. Not only did music seem to calm her down, but she adored Alice Angel just as much as Sammy did. She seemed to notice the similarities between her mother and Alice, and once she was able to talk she called her Auntie Alice. In addition to that, she seemed utterly done with Joey Drew the moment she met him. Joey greeted her when Susie and Sammy brought her to the studio and Aria just stared at him with the very same look Sammy routinely gave his boss. 

“She’s definitely your child.” Joey sighed as he drew away from her. 

“No one’s going to mess with our girl,” Susie said proudly. She could already tell Aria was going to be someone who did not suffer fools lightly, just like her parents. Aria turned away, reaching for Alice again. Alice and Susie both laughed and Aria was passed off to Alice again, where she gurgled and patted Alice’s cheeks. 

“She’s certainly an interesting kid,” Bendy said, peering down at Aria. 

“She’s a very serious baby,” Norman said. “Although, I’d expect nothing less from a child of Sammy Lawrence.”

“We should take her down to see Johnny.” Susie suddenly said. “He never gets any visitors, and I’m sure she’d love to hear the organ.” Sammy nodded, and they all went down to the music department. He was starting to feel like maybe...Maybe this would be alright.


	28. Chapter 28

dreamnoteprincess asked: Hell's Studio Au. Henry and Joey first met.

* * *

 

Henry had been 18 years old, heading into his first animation class at Caltech. When he found his classroom, he sat in the front, ready to absorb everything he could. He’d come prepared with everything he imagined he could possibly need. Notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers. He was ready. What he had not, however, expected was Joey Drew. A few minutes before the class started, someone sat down right beside Henry. He turned to see who his neighbor was, and was greeted by a young man not much older than him, with what could only be described as grandfather glasses and a huge grin.

“Hi!” The other man said, sticking his hand out. “My name’s Joey Drew! What’s your name?”

“Henry...Ross.” Henry shook Joey’s hand tentatively. “It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you.”

“You too! Man, is this going to be great or what? I’ve always wanted to make cartoons, y’know. Do you wanna make cartoons too?” Joey said, pumping Henry’s hand up and down with more force than Henry had originally thought the rather scrawny man to be capable of.

“Yeah....” Henry just sort of nodded. He’d never been a terribly energetic person, nor was he familiar with anyone quite this...exuberant.

“You alright?” Joey stopped shaking Henry’s hand, frowning a little bit. “Oh, sorry, did I scare you? My family always says I need to reign in my energy, and I swear I’m trying, it’s just-”

“Mr. Drew.” The two boys turned to see the teacher standing in front of them, staring down at Joey with crossed arms.

“Hi.” Joey smiled sheepishly. “I suppose class is starting now, huh?”

“Indeed it is, Mr. Drew, so I would suggest you turn your attention to me.” The teacher said coolly. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“I will. Sorry, sir.” Joey turned and fished out a notebook from his bag. The teacher sighed and began the first lesson of the very first day. Henry couldn’t help but laugh a little bit at the display. If nothing else, Joey Drew was certainly an entertaining person to be around.

“What a way to start out my college career,” Joey said once class was over, falling into step beside Henry.

“It was definitely something,” Henry said. “Um...Why are you following me?”

“I thought maybe we could be friends.” Joey grinned, sticking his hand out again. “Since we’re in the same class and all. We might even get to work on things together!” Henry had come to California from a small farming community in Iowa. He barely knew anyone here. Maybe, he thought to himself, it wouldn’t be so bad to make friends with this strange boy. It would certainly give him someone to hang out with when he wasn’t doing homework. It would give him someone to lean on.

“Alright.” Henry tentatively took Joey’s hand once more. Joey’s smile widened.

“I look forward to working with you, Henry Ross!”

In the months that followed, Henry found himself growing closer and closer to Joey Drew. The two of them ate lunch together, compared notes, studied together. In their second year, they even became roommates. In this time, Henry learned the downsides of Joey’s enthusiasm. He’d wake up at 3 in the morning to find Joey puttering around on whatever project had caught his interest at that moment. Joey often forgot to eat, sleep, do the basic things that he needed to do to take care of himself. Henry made sure that didn’t happen as often as it might have. As they neared the end of college, one project kept coming back. One of their early assignments had been to create characters that subverted expectations. Joey had created a little demon, while Henry had gone for a mostly harmless wolf. Henry had mostly forgotten about his wolf, but Joey never really let go of that demon. He’d draw it over and over, practicing poses, expressions, scenarios.

“Hey, Henry.” Joey poked him one day while Henry was doing some math homework.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think people would watch a show about our characters?”

“Which ones?”

“The demon and the wolf,” Joey said. “I think we’ve really got something great here! People love little rascals, right? We could make your wolf the foil!”

“Hm. You think so?” Henry looked up from his textbook.

“I know so.” Joey flashed him a big smile. “I even drafted up some storyboards for an episode! It’s called Tombstone Picnic!”

“Let me see.” Henry’s studying was completely forgotten as Joey drew him into his new idea. By the end of the night, Henry was completely sold. The two of them made plans to start up their own studio once they got out of school. And they did. They saved up enough money and bought a run-down little building in Pasadena. Once that was done, they built their team. Joey’s magnetic personality drew in everyone they needed. Even as they grew older, and everything changed, whenever Henry looked at Joey Drew, he saw that excitable boy that had come up to him on the first day of class. That day was certainly was he was never going to forget, not as long as he lived.


	29. Chapter 29

**[phoena12](https://phoena12.tumblr.com/) asked: Heeeey, so excited your taking prompts again \●□●/ Sooo hell's studio au; Henry gets sick, so the tons decide to help him feel better?**

Sorry this took so long to write. I wasn’t exactly feeling great. 

Honestly, part of this is inspired by [this](https://asktheinkdemon.tumblr.com/post/160341042287/mod-animator) comic. 

* * *

 

Employees at Joey Drew Studios tended to work themselves far harder than their bodies were able to handle. Bendy was a perfect example of this, but at the moment he wasn’t the one working himself to his limit. That lucky bastard was Henry. The animator had come down with a fever, but they were approaching a deadline, so he’d dragged himself to the studio.

“Yeesh. You’re lookin’ rough there, Henry.” Bendy said when he saw Henry shuffle his way in. “You sure you should be here.”

“Gotta get my shots finished,” Henry mumbled, waving his hand dismissively.  ****Bendy debated for a moment whether to make Henry go home or let him work. He decided to just let the guy work for now. After all, Henry could pretty stubborn when he wanted to be, and Bendy didn’t really feel like trying to drag the guy home.

“If you say so.” He said. 

 

“I’ll be fine,” Henry assured him with a worn smile before heading to his desk.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t fine, as Wally found him passed out at his desk about an hour later. They quickly moved him to Bendy’s office and set him up on a cot in the corner. Since everyone else was busy meeting the deadline, it fell to the toons to take care of Henry.

“I swear, it’s like none of you take care of yourselves.” Alice clicked her tongue as she laid a cool washcloth on Henry’s forehead.

“I’m fine.” Henry insisted, trying to get up. “I just need to-”

“Boris.” Bendy snapped his fingers. “Sit on him.”

“What?! Bendy!”

“Okay~” Boris settled himself on top of Henry in a way that prevented the animator from getting up, but also didn’t actively endanger him.

“There. Now he’s not going anywhere.” Bendy folded his arms, looking rather proud of himself.

“We need to feed him something.” Alice shifted her attention to looking around the office. “He needs to stay hydrated. Do you have tea or something?”

“Water literally melts us. What do you think, angel?” Bendy asked flatly. Alice rolled her eyes, starting to search his desk drawers. He always kept the strangest things around. After a few minutes, she proudly brandished two teabags.

“I knew you’d have some!” She said. “You always hoard the weirdest stuff.”

“Huh.” Bendy just stared at the tea bags. “I did not know I had those. Hey, do you think bacon soup is good to feed him? We’ve got like a %#@ton of it.”

“That stuff’s like 20 years old!”

“Well, what else are we supposed to feed him?”

“We could ask Wally to go buy some chicken soup,” Boris suggested.

“Ask an intern!” Wally yelled from the hallway. “I’m not your damn gofer!”

“Fine, I’ll track down an intern.” Bendy straightened his bowtie. “You boil the tea, Alice. And Boris?” Boris perked up. “You’re doing a great job. Keep doing it.” Boris nodded enthusiastically, his tail slapping against the wall. Henry stared at the ceiling, already falling asleep again.

The rest of the day consisted of the three toons watching over Henry and keeping Joey away. Joey needed to be focusing on the deadline, not coming in with his weird satanic books to test remedies on Henry. It was surprisingly hard to keep him out of the room. He was pretty quiet when he wanted to be, and hardly made any sound at all if he really tried to muffle his footfalls. But in the end, they managed to keep Henry safe for the day before Sammy was drafted to drive Henry home at the end of the day. The music director did so, and with hardly any complaining too! Henry was instructed to take a few days off, just until he felt better. Henry, reluctantly, agreed. By the end of the week, he was back at work and back to normal. But the studio had to implement some new rules to keep staff from overworking themselves.


	30. Chapter 30

**[phoena12](https://phoena12.tumblr.com/) asked: Back at it again with another prompt request \●□●/ Hell's studio au; susie tells sammy she's pregnant?? Oooooor Hell's studio au; the tons experience snow for the first time ⊙□⊙**

* * *

 

It was December when Susie told Sammy the news. She’d known for about a month now. She’d just needed to find the right time to tell him. December worked out the best. They were having the studio Christmas party and Sammy was in a decent mood. Susie had put the positive pregnancy test in a little box and put it under the studio Christmas tree, addressed to Sammy.

“You’re looking happy.” Alice said, walking over to Susie. “What’s got you all smiley?” Susie leaned over and whispered the reason into Alice’s ear. Immediately, the toon’s face lit up.

“That’s amazing!” She said in a loud whisper. “Have you told Sammy yet?”

“That’s going to be his present.” Susie grinned.

“Do you think he’s going to cry?”

“Oh, most definitely.” Susie giggled a little. “He acts all tough, but believe me, he’s a real softie.” Alice and Susie’s conversation didn’t go unnoticed by Sammy, who had been dragged into a conversation by a slightly tipsy Joey and Wally. Henry was busy keeping Bendy from hitting the colored ink too hard. Wally had a plate of food, stuffing his face in between talking.

“What do you think they’re whispering about?” Sammy said, watching Alice and Susie.

“Probably you.” Wally said, snorting. “Maybe she’s talking about your sex life.”

“Very funny, Franks.” Sammy rolled his eyes.

“Cheap shot?” Wally shrugged. “They’re probably just talking about work or something.”

“You know, Christmas actually falls on the pagan holiday of Saturnalia.” Joey said, swaying a little. “It’s very interesting, really. It’s a Roman holiday celebrating the roman god Saturn and…” Wally and Sammy respectfully drowned him out. Until, that is, he pulled out something that looked like a sigil made of blood.

“And that’s why I made one of these! It’s not actual blood, it’s just paint. No one would let me use their blood.”

“Joey….What is that?” Sammy asked as Wally scooted away.

“It’s the seal of Saturn.” Joey said brightly. “I’m going to put offerings on it!”

“Oookay.” Sammy patted his back tentatively. “I think you’ve had enough to drink, buddy.”

“What did he do now?” Henry walked over, carrying Bendy under one arm. The demon was basically a rainbow at this point, hiccuping slightly.

“He made a weird sigil thing,” Wally explained, going back to eating.

“At least there’s no blood sacrifices going on this time.” Henry sighed.

“I’ll blood sacrifice you.” Bendy muttered, flashing red. “Put me down! I’m a grown man…demon….I’m an adult! Can stand on my own two feet.”

“I know.” Henry patted his head.

“Hey! Let’s open presents!” Boris said, holding up a box. “This one’s for Sammy!” Sammy strode over, snatching the box from the wolf’s hands.

“Wonder who it’s from.” He said, turning it over. From the wrapping, he assumed, it was Susie’s gift to him. He smiled a little and tore it open. Inside he found a mostly empty box, which puzzled him at first.

“Susie? What’s in he…re…” He trailed off when he saw the item at the bottom.

“What’s in it?” Henry asked. Sammy just stared into the box, his face blank. Then he looked at Susie.

“Is it….You’re sure, right?”

“I’m sure.”

“Are…Are you crying?” Wally frowned.

“Shut up!” Sammy wiped his eyes. “I’m just…This is great.”

“Well, what was in there?” Joey asked, tilting his head to the side.

“It’s a positive pregnancy test, you idiot!” Sammy tried to sound angry, but he was smiling so wide it hurt. “Susie’s having a baby. We’re going to be parents!” For a moment, the room was silent, then everyone erupted into applause and cheers.

“Ya..Ya think the baby’s going come out frowning?” Bendy said, squinting at Sammy and Susie. “If it’s Sammy’s baby, it’s gonna be grumpy.”

“Oh hush.” Alice swatted at his head. “This is a happy moment.” Bendy would likely congratulate the two better once he was sober. Then Boris came running into the room, his face all lit up and his tail wagging.

“Guys! Outside!” He said. “There’s stuff coming from the sky! It’s all white and fluffy and I don’t know what it is!”

“I think he’s talking about snow,” Susie whispered. “Have they ever seen snow before?”

“I guess not.” Sammy shrugged.

“I wanna see!” Bendy wriggled free, scrambling out to the front door. The human employees, and Alice, followed the little demon out to the parking lot. It seldom ever snowed in California, so this was a treat for all of them. Puffy white flakes drifted lazily down from the dark sky, lighting dusting the pavement, trees, and cars.

“Oh my.” Alice gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. “This…This is amazing!”

“I…I’mma fight it.” Bendy put up his fists. “What’re you look- lookin’ at?!” He did a few swipes, then fell over. Boris was just running around like an excited dog.

“Henry! Henry look at it!” He said, pointing. Henry laughed and nodded.

“Yes, Boris, I’m looking.”

Sammy and Susie leaned on one another, watching the scene before them. Sammy couldn’t believe it. He was going to be a father. He would worry later. For now, he wanted to enjoy the moment. Susie squeezed his hand.

“Not a bad Christmas party, huh?” She said, smiling.

“No.” He said. “Not a bad Christmas party at all.”


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little weird

**[dreamnoteprincess](https://dreamnoteprincess.tumblr.com/) asked: Hell's Studio AU: Literally a Hell's Studio, Bendy and the toons go against the studio workers in a little game of truth or dare, however, the toons seem to give out dares more then truths and the dares are ridiculous or weird.**

* * *

 

It was Friday night, and the studio had decided to play Truth or Dare. No one was entirely sure who had suggested this, probably Bendy, but they were doing it anyway. There was alcohol, they had a bottle for maybe playing Spin The Bottle later. They were all gathered around in a circle, with the bottle in the middle.

“Alright. Who’s going first?” Bendy asked. No one came forward. “Okay. Let’s spin the bottle.” And so he did. The bottle landed on Sammy, who groaned and took a shot.

“Alright, Sammy-Boy,” Bendy said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Truth or Dare?”

“I’m not an idiot.” He said. “Fucking truth.”

“Alright, big guy.” Bendy examined his nails. “How long have you and Susie been &$%@ing?” Sammy choked on his drink, causing Susie to slap his back.

“Bendy!”

“Sir!”

“That’s a highly inappropriate question,” Alice said coolly.

“C’mon Angel, it’s truth or dare,” Bendy said, smiling disarmingly. “I’m allowed to ask whaaateeeveeer I want.”

“Two-” Susie started to answer.

“Nuh uh.” Bendy wagged his finger side to side. “Sammy’s gotta answer.”

“I’m not answering that!” Sammy said.

“If you don’t, you have to take the dare,” Joey said. He had a bowl of popcorn in his lap. He’d mostly been excluded from the game because they were worried he’d do something weird.

“Fine.” Sammy’s face was bright red. “About…About a year now.” Wally whistled, only to be smacked over the head by Susie. Sammy just gave him an evil eye.

“Now spin the bottle!” Bendy said. Sammy rolled his eyes, muttered some rude remark, and spun the bottle. It landed on Wally, who immediately went white as a sheet.

“Alright, Franks.” Sammy gave him an evil smirk. “Truth? Or Dare?”

For a moment, Wally just fidgeted, then he steeled himself. “Dare.”

Sammy’s evil grin widened. He started laughing, which freaked out pretty much everyone in the conference room, except for Joey.

“Get on that table,” Sammy pointed to the conference table. “And do a striptease.”

“We have children here!” One of the employees said.

“The interns are not children,” Henry said. “Half of them are already screwing each other in here anyway.” Said interns went bright red and shuffled a little bit. Wally, unwilling to do truth when faced with Sammy, got up on the table and stripped. No one in the studio would ever forget the sight, even though they wanted to. When he was done, Wally sat back down. No one said anything, just spinning the bottle. As it turned out, the toons had extremely strange ideas for both truths and dares. Thankfully they weren’t at all sexual in nature, but they were strange. Alice asked a bunch of people to act out slapstick routines or movie scenes or things like that, Bendy delved into people’s deepest secrets, and Boris mostly just wanted pets and scratches. Joey kept, not so helpfully, suggesting that he could do some black magic as part of a dare. He was continually shot down. By the end of the night, they were all pretty plastered, and tired. They decided to sleep at the studio due to them all being way too drunk to drive. It had been an…interesting night.


	32. Chapter 32

**[phoena12](https://phoena12.tumblr.com/) asked: He'll studio au; bendy learns to play Bohemian Rhapsody?? Hope your feeling better today too!**

Thank you for your concern. I am feeling a bit better. Sorry this one is short. 

* * *

Bendy wouldn’t admit it, but he loved playing the piano with Joey. It was fun in a way that was calm and kept Joey from doing weird black magic shit. Now, classical music was all well and good, but Bendy wanted to learn some more current music. Something….fun and cool.

“What do you have in mind, exactly?” Joey asked when Bendy brought it up.

“I don’t know.” Bendy shrugged. “I just wanted to play something, y’know, current?”

“Well, I can ask Sammy to try and arrange something.”

“Maybe Queen. I like the look of that Freddy Mercury guy.” Bendy said, nodding and fingering the keys.

“Oh, so do I!” Joey’s face lit up. “He’s really quite an interesting man.”

“But we should really get back to work now,” Bendy said. “We’ve got shots to finish.” Joey seemed to deflate at that, but he stood up and went back to his desk to finish his shot. Bendy went to go talk to Sammy about maybe arranging some sheet music for a Queen song. Sammy was none too pleased by the request, but he agreed to do so anyway.

“It’d be nice to something other than write these stupid cartoon songs,” Sammy said, which was the closest to being excited that he was going to get. Bendy walked off to go get back to work. A few days later, Sammy slammed some sheet music onto Bendy’s desk. He was actually grinning.

“It took me three days, but I did it!” He said, smirking at Bendy.

“Man, Sammy-Boy.” Bendy picked up the papers and shuffled through them. “You really outdid yourself.”

“When you manage to learn it, I want to be there to hear you play it,” Sammy said, then went back to his office. Making sure no one else was there, he scrambled to the piano and started practicing. It took him at least a week to manage to play it somewhat passably. He didn’t let anyone in while he was practicing, mostly out of his own pride. But he managed to do it. And once he could do it, he called everyone into his office to sing it along with him. That day, the walls reverberated with the singing of Bohemian Rhapsody. The singing was a little off key in some cases, but they all sang together. Bendy didn’t understand exactly why Sammy had chosen Bohemian Rhapsody, but he didn’t really mind. It was a good song, just dramatic enough to work for him. Plus, everyone knew the lyrics.


	33. Chapter 33

**[deviltufts](https://deviltufts.tumblr.com/) asked: Hi! I also saw you were taking prompts again! (I love the ones you've done so far, by the way. They've earned a spot in my iBooks library pffft) Anywho, I was wondering if you would do one with Hell's Studio AU. Sammy transforming into an ink monster in a place other than the studio on accident, and maybe the staff helps him get back to the studio to bring to Joey, yet again? (I am such a sucker for Ink Sammy shenanigans, let me tell you.)**

I’m so glad you like my stuff! It means a lot to me to hear that.

Now, let’s torture Sammy. >:3

* * *

 

Sammy Lawrence had been turned into an ink creature twice and a toon once. This was three times too many as far as he was concerned. He was always worried he’d someday wake and he’d see ink instead of skin again. So far, that hadn’t happened, and he hoped it was going to stay that way. However, his life wasn’t meant to be that easy. At the moment, he was at home, playing the piano to calm himself down from the frankly awful day he’d had. He’d agreed to housesit for one of his neighbors, and that had been a whole ordeal. He’d gotten the wrong alarm code, the cats had bolted, the fish had died. It had been frankly awful. So now he was at home, playing the piano, trying to calm himself down. Susie had called and agreed to come over, but traffic was bad so it would be a little while.

“Happy place, Sammy.” He murmured to himself. “Happy place.” Okay, so, the piano was working. He got up and headed to make himself some tea. Susie had been trying to get him to drink herbal tea to calm himself down. As he waited for the water to boil, he noticed a black spot on the floor.

“What the-?” He leaned down. It looked like…ink. Immediately, he began to panic. He saw more drops of ink begin to appear on the floor. He reached up to touch his hairline, and his hand came away wet with ink.

“Why does this keep happening?!” He jumped up, scrambling towards the bathroom. This could not be happening again. He couldn’t be turning back into that….that thing! When he got into the bathroom, he could see the ink beginning to take over his body again. HIs first thought was that his clothes were going to be ruined again. His second thought was that he wanted to throttle Joey.

“Sammy?” He heard the front door open. “Are you here?”

“Susie.” His voice was shaking. “It’s happening again.” Susie ran to the bathroom. She knew as well as Sammy what ‘it’s happening again’ meant. After all, it had happened twice now. This made a third time. His whole face was almost covered now, and black patches were appearing on his arms.

“Oh dear.” She said.

“I’m going to kill him.” Sammy said, his hands curling into fists. “I’m going to kill Joey.”

“If we kill him, you won’t get fixed.” Susie patted his back. “But he is in so much trouble.” She left Sammy alone in the bathroom to go call the other members of the studio. Sammy changed into the ratty pair of overalls he’d kept since the first time. He left his normal clothes to soak in the bathtub.

“Okay, Wally’s heading over to pick us up.” Susie said. “I told Ben to yell at Joey too.” Sammy just made a noncommittal noise. He was already starting to melt into the floor.

“Hey.” Susie knelt beside him. “Pull yourself together, sweetheart. We’re gonna get through this. We always do.” A few bubbles popped up on the surface of the puddle that was Sammy, and his head peeked out.

“I’m getting really tired of this.” He said.

“So am I. This time we’ll get it done.” She patted the puddle about where she thought his back was.

“SAMMY! SUSIE! VAN’S OUT FRONT!”

“Oh joy. Franks is here.” Sammy muttered, pulling himself back into a stable form.

“I got the door.” Susie wiped her hands off and headed to the door. Wally stood there, carrying a giant stack of towels.

“What are the towels for?” Sammy asked, skulking over.

“To lay in the car.” Wally said.

“So you’re going to make me wear towels so I don’t ruin the interior of your car.”

“Bingo!”

“I hate you, Franks.” Sammy grumbled, taking the towels.

“You say that to everyone.” Wally said. The three of them headed to Wally’s van. Sammy got put in the back, complaining the whole way. It was the only way he could really cope with his fear. He wondered if this time was going to be the time he wouldn’t be able to change back. He didn’t want to cry. He couldn’t. But he wanted to.

“Hey.” He looked up to see Susie glancing back at him over the back of her seat. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“If you say so.” Sammy turned away, hugging his knees. He did feel better now that she’d said that.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” Wally chimed in. “Joey’s been scrambling to find anything he can to get you back to normal. Bendy’s been working him pretty hard.”

“Good.”

The studio was actually pretty calm when they showed up. They didn’t have any deadlines coming up, which made it easier on the employees. Everyone had been warned that Sammy had turned into an ink monster again. At this point, they were all pretty used to it, unfortunately. No one batted an eye when Sammy sludged in with Susie and Wally.

“Joey’s in his office.” An intern said. “Just head on in.” Sammy practically ran to Joey’s office, taking a deep breath before slamming the door open.

“JOEY!”

Joey nearly fell over, but quickly composed himself, smiling nervously up at Sammy.

“Sammy. Hello.” He said. “I’m working on finding some kind of binding ritual-”

“Binding ritual?” Sammy nearly snarled.

“Well, from what I heard, this transformation was brought on by stress.” Joey explained. “So we need to find some way to disconnect the transformation from your emotions.”

“Alright…”

“So, get in the circle.” Joey gestured to the circle that seemed to permanently be on his office floor.

“Don’t do anything weird to him.” Susie said from the doorway. Wally stood at the ready with his mop. He knew better than to complain when in the presence of a royally pissed off Sammy. Joey got out his spellbook and sat down, beginning to chant. Susie and Wally waited, watching intently as the ritual began. Sammy just waited, towel wrapped around his shoulders. He felt the ink receding, but there was a strange sensation on his back. It was like something was forming from the ink. When he opened his eyes, the ink was gone again, but there was something on his back.

“I told you not to do anything weird to him.” Susie snapped. “There’s a pentagram on his back!”

“A pentacle.” Joey said. “It should keep him from turning back into an ink monster.” Sammy craned his neck to get a look at what Susie was talking about. Sure enough, there was a five pointed star in a circle in the small of his back.

“Joey!”

“I fixed it, didn’t I?” Joey put his hands up. The two bickered for a few minutes before Susie stopped them.

“Well, I guess it can be covered up.” She said. “Now come on, let’s get you some proper clothes.” Sammy flushed a little in realizing he was still in the oversized overalls.

“Yeah….Okay.” Hopefully this was going to be the last time it would happen.


	34. Chapter 34

**[phoena12](https://phoena12.tumblr.com/) asked: Hell's studio au prompt! \●□●/ I think you mentioned this in your last fic you did, sooooo, Sammy pranks bendy for once after years of getting pranks from the little devil incarnate :D**

[This](http://queenofcats17.tumblr.com/post/161723465225/bendys-reign-of-terror) is what I was referring to, but I’m all for more Sammy revenge. Adding in a little Wally bonding.

* * *

 

Sammy Lawrence was a patient man. One might not know this based on his behavior, but he could wait for days if the need arose. He’d already glued Bendy to the door by mixing in glue with his invisible ink, and he was ready to repeat the trick. Bendy had since stopped using invisible ink, but that didn’t mean Sammy couldn’t still glue him somewhere. So he set about forming a plan, one where he could get back at Bendy for all the years of merciless pranking from the little demon. When Wally entered Sammy’s office and saw him smiling, he knew something was up.

“You aren’t gonna prank me are you?” He asked.

“No. Not today.” The music director hummed. “Today’s target is Bendy.”

“Oooh. Lemme in on it.” Wally grinned and leaned on his mop.

“Well…” Sammy tilted his head to the side, tapping his pencil on his chin. “I could use an accomplice and Susie’s busy right now.”

“What do you need from me, boss?”

“How much superglue do you think you can find in an hour?” Sammy asked with a malevolent gleam in his eyes. Wally mimicked the expression, grinning.

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” He said with a laugh.

About an hour later, Bendy was walking back to his office. He still wasn’t sure why Sammy had wanted to talk to him for the last hour. Sammy wasn’t the kind of person who engaged in idle chatter. Usually, when he wanted to talk to you, he had a distinct reason for it. This had been…out of character. Sammy had called him in because he’d been unsure about a specific bar of the new song. That wasn’t weird, what was weird was how Sammy had held on to him after he’d gotten his answer. The music director had started talking about whatever came into his head, and it was frankly a little off-putting. Sammy didn’t make small chat. It just didn’t happen. Then he’d said he had a surprise for Bendy in his office. Bendy shook his head. It was probably nothing. He was probably just overthinking things. He needed sleep, but then again they were approaching a deadline within the next couple of days. When he got to his office, he saw Wally walking away with a bucket and a paintbrush.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” Bendy asked.

“Door needed a new coat of paint.” Wally said, shrugging. “Sammy suggested I got that done while he was talking with you.”

“That was…nice of him.” Bendy said tentatively.

“He said it bothered him.” Ah, that explained it. As Wally walked away, Bendy braced his shoulder against the door, ready to open it. The door always stuck. There was a wetness against his shoulder that he assumed was the wet paint, but once the door was open, he found he couldn’t detach himself from the door. He sniffed, and there was the telltale smell of…

“Superglue.” He whispered. There was only one person he knew could be behind this. Sammy smiled to himself as he heard Bendy’s voice.

“SAMMY LAWRENCE!”


	35. Chapter 35

**[phoena12](https://phoena12.tumblr.com/) asked: Cute fic idea! How's about a hell's studio au wherein the studio and Co throw a birthday for wally (I feel like the guy doesn't get enough love y'know?) Bonus points if sammy joins in with singing happy birthday XD**

Despite how much Wally talked, his coworkers knew next to nothing about him. When it came to his personal life, Wally was surprisingly tight-lipped. He’d always change the subject, chattering on about something else entirely. Few people in the studio even knew when his birthday was. Susie Campbell, ever the ambitious one, had decided that she was going to change that.

“You want to what?” Sammy asked, staring at his girlfriend.

“I want to throw Wally a birthday party,” Susie repeated, a bit testily. “Don’t you think he deserves that much? We throw parties for everyone else.”

“I guess it would be nice,” Sammy admitted. “Might get him to shut up for a while too.”

“Oh hush, I know you care about him.” Susie swatted at his shoulder. Sammy grumbled, but Susie knew she’d been right. Even if Sammy and Wally fought a lot, the two of them did like one another. Susie had often found them in Sammy’s office, talking music together. Wally didn’t know nearly as much as Sammy, but he knew enough that Sammy found it enjoyable to discuss with him every so often.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I just need to go find out when his birthday is from Joey.”

“What makes you think Joey will know?” Sammy asked, then realized how stupid he sounded.

“You know as well as I do that Joey knows just about everything about everyone,” Susie said. “He’s a nosy bastard, and that’s what I’m counting on.”

“Alright.” Sammy shrugged. “I’ll be here.” So Susie set off for Joey Drew’s office. She found him actually doing work for once, which she assumed meant he was either in a productive mood or Bendy had just come by to yell at him for now working.

“Hey, boss?” She leaned on the doorframe. “I’ve got a question for you.”

“Oh, Susie!” Joey looked up and smiled. “What’s your question?”

“When’s Wally’s birthday? I want to throw him a party.”

“Hm.” Joey frowned, tapping his pencil against his chin. He was silent for a few minutes. “I think…It’s the day after tomorrow, actually.”

“What?!” So she didn’t have nearly as much time as she’d thought. “Thanks boss, gotta go!” She frantically ran back downstairs, almost slamming Sammy’s door open. He jumped, his pen flying out of his hands.

“What the Hell?!” He asked, turning around. “What’s wrong?”

“Wally’s birthday is the day after tomorrow.” She said, breathing heavily. “We’ve gotta move fast.” Sammy retrieved his pen, capping it and putting it on the table.

“Right. Let’s get started.”

They enlisted Henry, Johnny, and Norman to help them prepare the party. Johnny was tasked with keeping Wally occupied, while the other four put together the party in the breakroom. Henry secured a cake and some food, while Norman and Sammy set up the tables and chairs. Susie got the party supplies from a local party store. Balloons, little party hats, paper plates, silverware. By the time Wally’s birthday came around, they were fully prepared. Joey was mostly kept out of it since he wasn’t the best at keeping secrets.

“You guys sure are acting weird,” Wally said on the day of the party. “Did you send Johnny to follow me or somethin’? He’s been at my side nonstop.”

“We thought you might be lonely,” Susie said, recovering quickly.

“It’s getting kind of creepy,” Wally whispered, glancing back at the organ player. “I mean, all he does is watch me.”

“Well, I’m sure he means well,” Susie assured him. “Anyway, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“We both do,” Sammy said.

“A…surprise?” Wally eyed them suspiciously. A surprise from Sammy seldom meant good things. The last time someone had gotten a surprise from Sammy it had been Bendy getting superglued to a door.

“I swear, no one’s getting pranked,” Susie said. Wally didn’t seem to completely believe her, but he followed the two of them up to the breakroom anyway. Waiting inside were most of the studio employees. The lights were off so they could surprise Wally when they walked in. Susie opened the door, the lights went on, and everyone yelled,

“SURPRISE!”

“Happy birthday Wally!” Susie loudly proclaimed. For a moment, the janitor just stood in the doorway. Susie was immediately worried she’d done something wrong. Did he not want to celebrate his birthday? Then he grinned.

“Man, you didn’t need to do this.” He said, taking the whole scene in. “How’d you guys find out?”

“Joey,” Sammy said, pulling out the cake. “He really does know everything. Now, shall we sing?”

“Lead us, won’t you, Sammy?” Susie said. Sammy rolled his eyes, but still smiled and started singing anyway.

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Wally. Happy birthday to you.” The studio crew sang as the cake was placed before Wally. Wally smiled softly. He’d never been a bit fan of too much attention being placed on him, but this was nice. Being surrounded by his fellow coworkers felt good.

“You really didn’t need to do this.” He said again once they’d stopped.

“Nonsense!” Susie said. “We celebrate everyone else’s birthday. I thought you deserved some attention to.”

“You’re gonna make me blush.” Wally shrugged a little, pulling his hat down over his face.

“That’d be a first.” Sammy snorted and dished him up a slice of cake. The party was quiet, but that was alright. Wally was happy just being around his coworkers.


	36. Chapter 36

**[phoena12](https://phoena12.tumblr.com/) asked: Hey there! Sorry for lack of prompt giving (have been very sick as of late, again, :( So how's about a a hell's studio au; wherein bendy and crew go for a day out e.g. a local funfair Bonus points if; bendy gets lost/ joey critiques the shit out of a haunted house XD**

It was Halloween, so the studio was headed to the local fun fair. Since it was Halloween, it was easier for the toons to move around unnoticed. Although, at this point, pretty much everyone knew that Alice, Bendy, and Boris were alive. But it was certainly more accepted for the toons to be out during Halloween. Plus, they always got excited when they saw little kids dressed as them. Speaking of costumes, Joey had insisted that everyone dress up in order to head to the fair. Sammy and Susie were going as Jack Skellington and Sally, Wally was a werewolf, Norman had chosen to be the Black Panther, Henry was Frankenstein’s monster, and Joey…Joey had dressed up as Walt Freaking Disney.

“I swear, we’re risking copyright here,” Bendy said, adjusting his vampire cape as they headed out of the studio. “Especially with Angel dressed up like she is.”

“Oh please, no one cares,” Alice said, pulling up her dress. She’d decided to be Betty Boop, out of respect for her fellow animated lady. Boris had decided to be a werewolf too, which he was perfectly happy with.

“Just relax and have some fun.” Joey said brightly. “If I got Sammy to put on a costume, then I can get you to have fun.” Bendy just rolled his eyes. They headed to the local fair, bought their tickets and went inside. Joey immediately headed to the haunted house, wanting to check it out for himself. He had always wanted to start up a haunted house at the Studio, and he had a lot of ideas about how a haunted house should work. Henry trailed after him. He had to make sure Joey didn’t get punched by whoever ran the haunted house. He found Joey looking the haunted house over and clicking his tongue.

“The exterior is just so shabby.” He said. The teenage girl who was collecting tickets stared at Joey, popping her gum boredly.

“Sir, I didn’t design this place.” She sighed. “Please take any complaints up with my boss.”

“Alright, let’s go in.” Joey turned to Henry with sparkling eyes. Henry sighed and followed Joey inside. The haunted house was pretty low budget, with a few actors jumping out at random points. They surprised Henry, but Joey remained unphased. He came out shaking his head.

“I expected better, honestly.” He said, taking out a notebook and starting to scribble in it. “The actors obviously don’t want to be here, the scares are cheap, and it doesn’t take the viewer at all seriously.”

“Sir, I’m not the one you should be complaining to.” The teenage girl rubbed her temples.

“Really, it’s awful!”

“Sir, I’m not paid enough to give a shit about this.”

Meanwhile, the others were still in the main area, just wandering around.

“So, what do you guys want to do?” Susie asked, looking to the rest of their group, only to find Wally and Norman had wandered off.

“Wait, where’s Bendy?” Boris asked. Bendy seemed to be gone as well. Alice sighed, running a hand through her hair.

“Figures we lost him in the crowd.” She said. “He’s like a little kid.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Sammy said, a small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “He’ll throw a fit.”

“He always throws a fit.” Alice said. They started searching for Bendy in the crowd, eventually locating him with a group of kids, many of whom were dressed as Bendy, Alice, and Boris. Bendy was telling stories to the little kids.

“There you are,” Alice said, hands on her hips. “You had us all worried.” The kids all squealed at the sight of Alice and Boris, immediately flocking to the two of them.

“Hey, I was in the middle of a story!” Bendy feigned indignance.

“Sorry, I guess our charm is too great,” Alice said with a cheeky grin. Boris leaned down so that the children could pet him. A few ran up to Sammy and Susie, asking if they really were Sally and Jack. Sammy put on his biggest smile and winked.

“Don’t tell anyone.” He said in a stage whisper. “We wanted to experience Halloween in the human world.”

“You all look lovely!” Susie said, clapping her hands together. “The spirit of Halloween is strong in this place.” Bendy snickered a little at this display, but it did make him happy to see Sammy interacting with children. The music director was so good with children. Eventually, Joey and Henry joined them. Joey happily entertained the children, explaining what he did and answering any questions they had about the toons and about the animation industry. It was a good outing.


	37. Chapter 37

> [Alternate Prompt](http://queenofcats17.tumblr.com/post/165600486870/alternate-prompt)

> By [@magicalmonsterhero](https://tmblr.co/mctfDpl6LStDVGfHpM3ZLTA)
> 
> If you’re still stuck on the last idea, I have an alternative:
> 
> Norman hears that Stan Lee is going to be at a local comics convention, and Bendy decides the gang will be attending in costume.
> 
> Bonus points for the following quote:  
> “And the award for grouchiest Mr. Fantastic goes to…”  
> “Shut. Up.”

The studio was going to a comic convention, much to Sammy’s chagrin. But at the same time, seeing Norman’s face all lit up as they piled into Henry’s van was worth it. 

“This is going to be amazing!” He said. He’d decided to go as Black Panther, just as he had for Halloween. Black Panther was one of his favorites, after all, although Captain America was a close second. The rest of the crew had dressed up as well, at Bendy’s suggestion. Henry had chosen to be Bruce Banner, while Joey had decided to be Hank Pym. Bendy had made himself a little Iron Man suit because of course he wanted to be a genius playboy philanthropist. Susie had insisted upon a couple’s costume with Sammy, which he pretended he was upset about.

“And the award for grouchiest Mr. Fantastic goes to…” Bendy drummed his hands on the seat. 

“Shut. Up.” Sammy adjusted his suit. He had to admit, he didn’t feel as ridiculous as he thought he would. 

“Well, he does pull it off,” Joey said, sounding a little disappointed. He’d wanted to be Mr. Fantastic originally, but Susie had persuaded him to be Ant-Man instead, mostly due to their shared disastrous science. 

“I told you he would.” Susie adjusted her blond wig. It was a lot itchier than she’d anticipated. 

“I honestly thought he was cosplaying the first time I met him,” Norman said. “He just looks so much like Reed Richards.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sammy said. 

“It is.” Norman insisted. “I’m sure Stan Lee will love your costume!”

“It is pretty cool that we’re going to see Stan Lee,” Henry said, grinning. “The man’s a legend.” This was mostly said for the benefit of Sammy, who didn’t know quite as much about the comics and animation industry as the others did. 

“I’ll expect Joey to fanboy,” Sammy said with a slight smirk. 

“Oh yes! That will definitely happen!” Joey said brightly. 

“I wonder how the great Stan Lee’ll react to me?” Bendy flipped up his visor. “I’m a legend in my own right, after all~”

“Yes, you are.” Susie kissed his head or his helmet at least. 

The ride over was filled with quiet excitement, and Norman spouting off interesting facts about Marvel comics. Everyone listened, even Sammy. Norman’s knowledge of comics history was impressive, to say the least. It was always interesting to listen to him. Once they got there, Norman took the lead. They were doing a panel later in the day, but first Norman wanted to go to the meet and greet with Stan Lee. Joey did indeed fanboy in meeting Stan Lee, and Stan Lee was rather excited to meet Bendy. 

“Who wouldn’t be?” Bendy said. “I’m incredible.” 

“Humility isn’t his strong suit,” Sammy muttered. Apparently, word of Joey’s incredible feat had spread to nearly everyone in the animation industry. Joey nearly fainted on the spot when Stan Lee actually greeted him by name. He greeted all of them by name, which excited even Sammy. 

“Nice costumes too. You really do look like Mr. Fantastic.”

“Um, thanks.” Sammy tried not to blush. “They were Norman’s idea.”

After a few more minutes of talking, they were escorted to their convention room for the panel, still in costume and still giddy. It was a good day.


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one has some mentions of illness

**Anonymous asked: Hi, don't know if you still make batim hell's studio stories, but if you still do I've got an idea : Sammy is somking too much and one day he does't feel realy good. He starts coughing with blood, so everybody quickly finds out that he has got tuberculosis. Hopfuly he gots back to health pretty fast. Sorry if I bother ya with that, I only thought that this might be interesting.**

I haven’t written for Hell’s Studio for a while, but I’m definitely willing to write for it again. Hell’s Studio was what made me fall in love with BATIM in teh first place. 

Warning, this might be a little intense. 

Hell’s Studio belongs to [@doodledrawsthings](https://tmblr.co/mURZ1FnKHOreOTyGY_-dsag)

* * *

Everyone had been slightly concerned when Sammy had started having chest pains, but he waved them off, insisting he was fine. 

“Occupational hazard of smoking.” He said. This had convinced absolutely no one, and Bendy had sent him home for the day. He’d been back the next day, of course, still claiming that nothing was wrong. Everyone around him could tell that something was going on, though. He was pale, his face was flushed, he’d lost weight, and he was coughing more than usual.

“You look like Death warmed over, Sammy,” Bendy said when he went to collect that day’s compositions. 

“It’s just a cold or something.” Sammy waved a hand in a weak dismissive gesture. “I’ll be fine. Give it a few days.”

“You sure about that?” Bendy leaned on the desk. “I don’t know much about human sicknesses, but I’m pretty sure a cold doesn’t do this to people.” He gestured to Sammy in a broad sweeping motion.

“I’ve probably just got bronchitis. I always get it around this time of year.” Sammy said before launching into another coughing fit. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, coughing violently into it. When he pulled away, though, he froze. There were flecks of red dotting the pristine white cloth.

“Is that…?” Bendy asked, feeling his heart beginning to drop. Sammy just stared at the handkerchief, his face going even paler than it currently was. 

“Hey, uh, Henry?” Bendy backed out the door, shouting into the hallway. “It ain’t normal for humans to cough up blood, right?” Almost immediately there was a commotion as Henry came running, Susie not too far behind him.

“Who’s coughing up blood?” Henry demanded. 

“Sammy.” Bendy pointed with a shaky finger at the music director. Sammy hadn’t moved from his desk, still staring at the blood-stained handkerchief. 

“Sammy, what’s-” Susie took a step towards Sammy, but Sammy put up a hand. 

“Don’t…Don’t come any closer.” He said, looking over at her with wide eyes. 

“What? Why?” Henry’s brow furrowed. “We have to come in to check you out and make sure you’re alright.” 

“You can’t come in here.” Sammy shook his head. “I can’t risk having you two get infected.”

“Sammy, you’re bein’ awful cryptic.” Bendy started tapping his foot on the floor nervously. “What’s goin’ on? Why’re you upset?”

“It’s tuberculosis, boss.” Sammy’s voice got soft. He seemed on the verge of tears. “I’ve got tuberculosis.”

“I-It can’t be tuberculosis!” Susie shook her head vigorously. “How would you even have been exposed to it? It only happens in-”

“Poor communities, I know.” Sammy cut her off. “I…I was volunteering at a soup kitchen last month. I must have caught it there.” 

“Are…Are you going to die?” Susie asked quietly. 

“He’s not going to die,” Henry said quickly. “We’ll get him treatment. It’ll be alright.” 

As Henry left to figure out what to do, Bendy just stood in the doorway. He’d heard about tuberculosis before. It was generally spoken about in hushed tones, a threat of the past that had consumed many lives. But things were better now. Tuberculosis wasn’t as much of a threat as it had once been. Still, people died from it. Bendy felt his stomach beginning to sink. It was too soon for a member of the studio to die! He’d only been here for a few years! 

“Hey. Bendy.” Bendy’s attention snapped back to Sammy, who smiled softly. 

“Everything’s going to be alright.” The music director assured him. 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Bendy offered a shaky smile. “It’d take a lot more than some old disease to put you in the ground.”

He tried to keep telling himself those words even as Sammy was whisked away to a sanitorium. They weren’t allowed much contact with him for fear of the disease spreading. But Susie diligently visited Sammy every chance she got, giving the rest of the studio progress reports.

“He’s doing pretty well.” She told them. 

“How can you tell?” Alice asked. Unlike Bendy, she wasn’t afraid to express her concern for Sammy.

“He’s complaining.” Susie smiled wearily. 

It seemed as though Sammy was at that sanitorium for years, even though in reality he was only there for about nine months. The studio just wasn’t the same without him. They hired a replacement music director, who to his credit was very competent, but everyone missed Sammy. Even Wally. 

“It’s too quiet.” He moaned whenever he got the chance. Joey echoed this sentiment, although he didn’t really count since he never seemed to mind getting yelled at even when Sammy was there. 

“Never thought I’d miss Sammy’s tirades,” Norman admitted when asked. Boris and Alice had banded together to form a little support group in Sammy’s absence. Boris needed a lot of comfort. He was a sensitive boy. Bendy and Alice were happy to provide that comfort, especially since Bendy also needed comfort but he didn’t want to admit it.

Everyone was delighted when Sammy finally came back to the studio. Granted, he wasn’t technically back, but they were throwing a party to celebrate the fact that he’d been cured of TB. Susie was bringing him over, so it fell to everyone else to prepare the party. It went…about as well as one would expect. Joey wanted to do some weird black magic stuff, which Henry had to talk him out of, Wally got tangled up in the banner they’d made, and one of the interns had accidentally spiked the punch. It was a disaster. But it was _their_ disaster. Bendy and Henry managed to reign things in so when Susie and Sammy arrived, the party looked alright. Sammy still looked pretty rough, too thin, skin too pale, wheelchair-bound, but when he saw the party, he smiled and rolled his eyes. 

“Welcome back, Sammy!” Everyone said. Boris threw up some confetti and Alice blew a noisemaker. 

“We’ve missed you.” Susie kissed his head. “All of us. Even Wally.”

“Even Wally?” Sammy looked over at Wally, a smirk forming on his face. 

“You said you wouldn’t tell ‘im!” Wally said, pulling his hat down further over his face. 

“Glad to have you back, you grumpy bastard.” Bendy walked over, slapping Sammy’s back. “Should’ve known Death would be too afraid to take ya.”

“Yeah yeah.” Sammy rolled his eyes. Still, there was the barest hint of a smile tugging at his lips. 

“I made cake!” Alice announced, brandishing a cake. “Well, Susie  _and_  I made it, but I did a lot!”

“Alright, wheel me over so I can have a slice.” Sammy nodded to Susie, who happily obliged. Bendy stood back, watching as the party commenced. He’d really been worried there for a minute. But things had been alright. It had turned out for the best. Everything was going to be alright. 


	39. Chapter 39

**Anonymous asked: Hello, it's the anon asking about hell's studio fic! Maybe something with Bendy and Sammy, just their genral dynamic?? Sorry if that doesn't help, I can try and be more specific?**

No no! That’s perfect, thank you.

So, Hell’s Studio belongs to @doodledrawsthings

It’s been a while since I wrote in Hell’s Studio, but it still holds a special place in my heart.

* * *

Sammy had always been pretty ambivalent on the subject of cartoons. They’d only really just become a thing when he went to work for Joey Drew, so he hadn’t had much time to form an opinion about them. At the very least, he enjoyed writing music for the show. It was fun. Especially when he got to write music for Alice. Oh boy did he enjoy writing for Susie’s voice. But he’d still remained fairly neutral on the subject of the cartoons himself. Until, that is, Bendy was summoned. Words cannot express the confusion Sammy had felt upon entering Joey’s office to find his boss being berated by an inky monstrosity yelling with the voice of Bendy the Dancing Demon. Sammy just stood in the doorway, mouth open, music sheets clutched to his chest. It took a moment or two before either of them noticed him.

“Hello, Sammy!” Joey waved brightly. “Just give me a minute, I’m finishing something up.”

“Finish something up?!” The inky creature sputtered. “Oh no, I’m not done with you, Drew!”

“What…What the fuck?” Sammy finally whispered. 

“I summoned Bendy!” Joey said as if this explained everything. “Isn’t it great!”

“That…Does not look like Bendy.”

The creature, it did look like Bendy, made a derisive snort. “Exactly! This studio’s  **literally**  covered in my model sheets! How did you not summon me right?! The whole point of a  **model sheet**  is making sure I stay  **on model**!”

It was at this point that Sammy just turned around and went back to his office. There was a limit to the weird shit he was willing to put up with. He spent the rest of his day in his office, getting as much work done as he possibly could in order to avoid Joey and Bendy. He’d known Joey was weird, but he hadn’t expected this kind of weirdness.

It took a few days to finally get Bendy on-model, but once he was everyone was much happier. Or at least much less freaked out. Joey remained very proud of himself, despite everyone’s reminders that this hadn’t immediately worked out in his favor. Still, Bendy was nice to have around. He was a genuinely funny and charming little creature who got on with pretty much everyone. Even Sammy enjoyed his company.

He actually wasn’t all that surprised when Bendy ended up pretty much taking over the studio. Bendy might have been barely two feet tall and a literal cartoon demon, but he had a better grasp of deadlines and coordinating employees than Joey did. Sammy loved Joey, loathe as he was to admit it, but Joey really wasn’t the best when it came to organization.

And the best thing that came with Bendy becoming the boss was the complaining sessions he and Sammy had together. At the end of most work weeks, Bendy would show up with a bottle of colored ink for himself and some whiskey for Sammy.

“This job is killin’ me.” Bendy groaned, face down on Sammy’s desk. 

“And why is that, boss?” Sammy asked, sipping his whiskey. He couldn’t help but smile a little. He enjoyed these little meetings of theirs. Absolutely no one was allowed to know this, though. Save for Susie, maybe. And Norman, because Norman knew everything.

“No one can keep their deadlines, Joey keeps trying to summon Satan, and the music department has flooded three times in the last week.” Bendy was starting to melt a little, but Sammy didn’t particularly care. Everything was always covered in ink anyway.

“We’ll get through it.” Sammy shrugged. “We always do.” Bendy looked up, his pie-cut eyes narrowed.

“You’re awfully optimistic.”

“Wouldn’t call it optimism.” Sammy snorted. “It just seems like the world refuses to let this place die.”

“What do you mean?” Bendy properly sat up, eyes still narrowed. 

“Did Joey tell you about how the studio literally almost collapsed when he put in the ink machine?” Sammy asked, smirking slightly as he sipped his booze.

“What the &%$#?!” Bendy’s voice went comically high. “No! He didn’t tell me that!”

“In all honesty, he probably forgot.” Sammy leaned back in his chair. “But yes, the studio almost collapsed when the ink machine was put in. Joey doesn’t know the first thing about construction, so he just kept building down instead of out as the studio expanded. And when the ink machine was put in…” He paused, trying to stifle a snicker at the memory. “The studio couldn’t really take the added weight. That’s why the machine’s in a big shaft now.”

“For %@#$’s sake,” Bendy muttered, massaging his temples. 

“It’s Joey.” Sammy shrugged. “You get used to it.” Bendy sighed heavily, taking a long swig of his ink. Then he looked over at Sammy. 

“Y’know, I like you, Sammy.” He said. 

“I’m honored.” Sammy chuckled.

“No, I really mean it.” Bendy reached out to touch Sammy’s arm. “You do your work and you do it darn well. I’ve never had any problems with you.”

“Well, I  _do_  try,” Sammy said. They lapsed into silence for a moment or two, drinking their own respective poisons.

“D’ya like workin’ here?” Bendy asked after a bit. 

“It’s not the worst place I’ve worked.” Sammy shrugged. “Pay’s good. I like the people here. You’re a decent boss.”

“I think that’s one of the nicest things you’ve said about me.” Bendy laughed. 

“It’s the best you’ll get,” Sammy said, focusing on his glass. 

“Yeah yeah, alright.” Bendy slapped his back. “You’re a good guy, Sammy. I’m glad you’re here.” Sammy snorted derisively, but he was smiling.


End file.
